Besides the International Space Station (ISS) and satellites, there are thousands of objects orbiting the earth, so you had to expect some sort of devastating collision sometime. Perhaps not between two satellites, though: an Iridium communications satellite and a defunct Russian Cosmos 2251 satellite.
The satellite collision occurred 490 miles up, above Siberia. The Iridium satellite was launched in 1997 and weighed 1,234 pounds, while the Russian craft weighed 1,984 pounds and was launched in 1993.
According to Iridium, which has 66 low-earth orbiting (LEO), cross-linked satellites operating as a fully meshed network, their "constellation" is fully operational and they will move a spare satellite in by the end of the week (some forethought there, launching spares ahead of time).
Nicholas L. Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said:
"This is a first, unfortunately. Nothing to this extent” has ever happened before. We've had three other accidental collisions between what we call catalog objects, but they were all much smaller than this."
The catalog he speaks of is a catalog of space debris kept by U.S Strategic command.
The debris field for the Iridium / Cosmo satellite collision is well above the orbit of the ISS, which is about 215 miles up. According to NASA, there is a risk, but it is small.
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