ECN Forum Forums Safety Discussion and News Occupational Safety Discussion What's Your Story, Were You Ever Shocked?

Guess it was a good thing i was around to show you what NOT to do.

Have had a couple in my lifespan,

#1. Spill water on a plug in a receptacle and touch the water left on the wall after my mother turns off the wrong breaker!

#2. Testing outlets in house; instead of putting probes in outlet, touch to prongs of a halfway out plug. Arc and trip breaker. 120 on both arms, fry dad's voltmeter.

#3. Opening a computer power supply, shocked with???VAC accrossed both arms.

#4. (Actually a burn) Take a leftover take-out sandwich, place sandwich (along with aluminum wrapper) in microwave, put on high, hear popping sound, pop open microwave, try to put in sink, grab the smoldering part, ow!

#5. Father and I are installing new receptacle, (actually I'm holding the aluminum maglite flashlight) and he touches the screw terminals on accident, grabs Maglite, shocks me! 120VAC accross left arm.

My dad tells my family about these encounters:

#1. Working on a house w/ aluminum siding, him and a coworker are blasted 15 feet backwards by 240VAC on the siding.

#2. Barbed wire fence when he was younger and working on a farm.

#3. Shocked by 100VAC on a COAX TV line. Replace TV.

Another thing, I was reading a home structured wiring (PC Network, CATV, phone, audio, ect...) and it said the only danger from holding a ringing phone line would be "jumping up and hitting your head because the mild shock surprised you." You guys agree?

Although I ain't proud of it Joe, I as a new Amateur Radio Operator, was changing the power tap on a Power supply unit I built myself, my hand slipped off the terminal and straight onto the "un-shrouded" 230V phase terminal.
I was 14 years old at the time, I've never forgotten that shock, it was like having a whole wasp-nest in the end of my finger, luckily, I had my Left hand in my pocket.
Since then, I've copped a couple of shocks, mainly only 230V ones, through not thinking.

Please explain? This voltage is dangerous and its takes much less, under certain condition to kil a person!

Please be careful!

[This message has been edited by Joe Tedesco (edited 02-20-2005).]

Joe,
Our single phase voltage is 230V here in NZ.

Anyone ever try to move the Anode wire in the back of a black and white TV set away so it would quit arcing. I did at age 10 and I was lucky to see age 11. I woke up on the concrete floor about a minute later.

And then there was the time I decided to unstick the toast from the toaster. I'd seen my mother do it a dozen times. Guess I never watched her unplug it first. I was down about 2 minutes that time!

In response to Theelectrikid's post I am a tele-data technician and I was working at a site of ours troubleshooting a phone line and there are 2 blocks that are in a corner, one on one wall and one on the other adjacent wall, I am plugging onto a line on one block and my forearm touched a pair from a T-1 on the other block, my arm jumped but it happen to jump right in the direction of the other 66 block and I skinned half my forearm on the clips of a 66 block. OUCH!!!!! The shock did not have any ill effects on me yet, but the clips on 66 blocks can do some damage to the skin with the right persuasion.

It was my first time i cut alive cable when my epmloyee didnot cutof the right breaker

Sophomore year in high school... I had kicked the wall mounted switch to the "off" position outside the classroom I was waiting to enter. When the teacher arrived, I reached over to turn the switch back on... not realizing that the spring for the switch was poking out through a crack, and energized. Got a small scar the diameter of the spring on my finger as a result.

A few while working on bikes and cars... usually faulty insulation on spark plug wires discovered the hard way.

My only "professional" tingle was while re-routing conductors into new paralleled 3/4" EMT for a picky AHJ who flagged an inspection (even though we were under the number of wires allowed by Code, he wanted fewer wires in the pipe).

My foreman in one room by the panel, me on a ladder in an adjoining room at the 1900. Moving certain wires from one 3/4 to the newly installed 3/4)

Me: "Did you kill that blue circuit?"

Him: "Yeah, it's dead... go ahead"

Me (after cutting wire, pulling it out, running new to the panel, and stripping the end - reach to splice and finding out IT'S HOTTTT) "Yow! Hey, ya moron, I thought you said the line was dead!"

Him: "Oops... wrong blue. <CLICK> Sorry, Dude!!!"

I NCV'd it anyway, and made the splice.

I figured if my journeyman foreman (and friend) with many years experience could screw up (luckily without drastic results), that was enough to have me double-check everything since.

Too many times...

1st time (very young) - knew that a light bulb filament got hot and glowed. Rewired a broken lamp with small magnet wire, when not glowing, I felt to see if it was hot.

Another time - (Probably the worst) - Working on 480V irrigation system. Went into field to check, had to start power unit for generator, ran up to voltage, went to center pivot to check...didn't work (had opened panel with disconnect in on position). Shut down power unit. Went back to panel, reached in and grabbed a fuse...huh...what the ???? Upon closer inspection, the generator had been abandoned and a line run in from the REA lines at the road. Lines from the generator were laying in the weeds, wire ends exposed. The muscles in my arms hurt for weeks after this.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel like I've been pretty lucky. There have been too many times...some are humorous, some are not. Be careful out there! Luck might run out some day.

Chick