You can’t be electrocuted and live

November 27, 2017, 09:18 AM

myrottiety

Snap back to 18 year old me. Bad thunderstorm took out the power.

I go down to the basement. Barefoot for some weird reason. Plug in the generator and drag it outside. Go to start snatching on the cord to crank it. Lightening hit a old telephone pole about 20 feet away. Only thing I can figure that wet feet and grounded through the generator to the house ground.

Damn thing held me for a second with my whole arm spasming. Went back in side with a super red face. Uncontrollable urge to take a nap. My mom still yells at me for taking a nap laying on my back in the middle of the living room, after being hit by lightening.

November 27, 2017, 09:53 AM

Chance

I was a theater major in college - there is a lot of juice running through the light board. It could be kind of scary, particularly back in the day when the dimmers were all exposed.

Our tech theater instructor told us the story of the day when he was working on the board and got shocked. It was powerful enough that it through him back and knocked him out.

He came too, couldn't remember what happened but knew he had work to do on the board. He went back, got shocked again, got knocked unconscious again.

He got up, didn't know what happened, and was headed back to the board again when he was stopped by someone who had seen the second jolt.

November 27, 2017, 10:23 AM

HayesGreener

I investigated a couple of accidental electrocution death investigations and one really close call. In one of the death cases, a young woman was cleaning/mopping in her apartment and was barefoot in the bathroom with a fan running to dry the floor. Her leg came into contact with the metal frame of the fan and she got as shock which caused her to collapse on the fan and continue the current. She was found hours later and the first responders got shocked when they touched her. It turns out that a faulty plug on the fan had been replaced and the polarity reversed which allowed current to the frame. When I told her parents what had happened her Dad broke down-he is the one who replaced the plug. Moral of the story, if you don't know what you're doing don't screw with electricity, it can and will kill you

November 27, 2017, 10:23 AM

JALLEN

Even our first electrician was not immune.

Ben Franklin wrote:

quote:
The Company present (whose talking to me, and to one another I suppose occasioned my Inattention to what I was about) Say that the flash was very great and the crack as loud as a Pistol; yet my Senses being instantly gone, I neither Saw the one nor hear the other; nor did I feel the Stroke on my hand, tho' I afterwards found it raised a round swelling where the fire enter'd as big as half a Pistol Bullet by which you may judge of the Quickness of the Electrical Fire."

"I then felt what I know not how well to describe; as universal Blow thro'out my whole Body from head to foot which seem'd within as well as without; after which the first thing I took notice of was a violent quick Shaking of my body which gradually remitting, my sense as gradually return'd, and then I tho't the Bottles must be discharged but Could not conceive how, till att last I Perceived the Chain in my hand, and Recollected what I had been About to do: that part of my hand and fingers which held the Chain was left white as tho' the Blood had been Driven Out, and Remained so 8 or 10 Minutes After, feeling like Dead flesh, and I had a Numbness in my Arms and the back of my Neck, which Continued till the Next Morning but wore off. Nothing Remains now of this Shock but a Soreness in my breast Bone, which feels As if it had been Brused. I Did not fall, but Suppose I should have been Knocked Down if I had Received the Stroke in my head: the whole was Over in less than a minute."

In another place, Franklin wrote that “even if no other use be discovered for electricity, this will be significant. It helps keep a vain man humble.”

Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

November 27, 2017, 11:09 AM

Rey HRH

quote:
Originally posted by darthfuster:
I'll bet you can be electroluxed and live.....

That would suck.

"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946.

November 27, 2017, 11:42 AM

iron chef

quote:
Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
LOL, language always has a way around the rules.

Don't even get me started about flammable and inflammable meaning the same thing.

November 27, 2017, 12:46 PM

ersatzknarf

Jeepers, always thought that the stupid "Non-Inflammable" signs on gasoline tanker trucks meant the contents were flammable. . .

You know, like trying to make sense of "Highly Non-Inflammable" as your car spins out of control into the tanker truck and you wonder if there's enough time to put out all the cigarettes

November 27, 2017, 07:09 PM

SirBeep

quote:
Originally posted by JALLEN:
Most of us who experimented with radios back in the tube days have been lucky enough to survive nasty shocks, unanticipated brushes with death, etc. Some did not.

One of the most significant changes wrought by the ubiquity of solid state is that one is seldom exposed to high voltages.

There are all kinds of gizmos with entertaining levels of electrons in 'em. I was in the EE lab in college playing with PLAs or somesuch when a guy walks in with some other somesuch and proceeds to gut it on the bench. I asked him what the hell he was doing.. "Dumbass, you're an EE, you know what that big black sodacan looking thing is, why haven't you..." POW and dumbass was thrown against the wall on the other side of the room. I laughed (Hey, I might not be as stupid as dumbass here, but I was a stupid kid) and drug his dumb butt off of the floor.

He didn't die so hopefully he learned from the experience what a large farad capacitor looks like and why you should short 'em first.

November 28, 2017, 11:44 AM

cas

The technical term I use at work is electremafyed

quote:
Originally posted by braillediver:
Been there, done that, I don't do 480 anymore.

We try and keep it very technical at work. Like explaining to someone the difference between between kilohertz and megahertz. "120v megahurts, 480 killahurts".

Also, any wiring in the attic is high voltage, anything in the basement, low voltage.

November 28, 2017, 12:47 PM

JALLEN

quote:
Originally posted by SirBeep:
quote:
Originally posted by JALLEN:
Most of us who experimented with radios back in the tube days have been lucky enough to survive nasty shocks, unanticipated brushes with death, etc. Some did not.

One of the most significant changes wrought by the ubiquity of solid state is that one is seldom exposed to high voltages.

There are all kinds of gizmos with entertaining levels of electrons in 'em. I was in the EE lab in college playing with PLAs or somesuch when a guy walks in with some other somesuch and proceeds to gut it on the bench. I asked him what the hell he was doing.. "Dumbass, you're an EE, you know what that big black sodacan looking thing is, why haven't you..." POW and dumbass was thrown against the wall on the other side of the room. I laughed (Hey, I might not be as stupid as dumbass here, but I was a stupid kid) and drug his dumb butt off of the floor.

He didn't die so hopefully he learned from the experience what a large farad capacitor looks like and why you should short 'em first.

Well, yeah. There are still those pesky farads lurking about to watch out for. Consumer Products Safety Board and OSHA don’t control everything, yet.

November 28, 2017, 01:05 PM

Otto Pilot

My Dad (an inveterate tinkerer/engineer who built a very large Jacobs Ladder and Tesla coil in his backyard as a kid in the mid 40's) always told me about how he and his buddies would deal with unknown electrical gear that they were messing around with.

He said they would only use one hand with the other one in their pocket. The idea being that if there was a shock, that would prevent a circuit across their heart and it would ground from hand down to foot. He said they were lucky they never got a hard zap because though he was not a doctor, he was pretty sure they'd have just died with one hand in their pocket. Ahhh, youth.

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