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

First time was around 7 yrs old, playing in a friend's basement rec room, knocked over a defective table lamp, it grabbed hold and didn't let go! Luckily my friend knew to pull the plug.

Worst was a good jolt with 115vac 400hz aircraft power in the Air Force, was thrown about 60 feet from one plane to another, have permanent callus on my heel from the exit wound. One leg of three-phase contactor on jet-turbine powered mobile generator failed to open. Add wet ground from monsoon storm, sweaty person grabbing heavily abused rubber connector plug and watch the fun. Thankfully the current took a mostly external path on my skin or I wouldn't be here today.

Also took a hit from a pulse ignitor for cinema Xenon lamp. 15kv at several milliamps, very painful.

I remember when I first got into the trade and knew enough to be dangerous. I was replacing a ballast in a strip light above a friends kitchen sink. Yep, Thats right- I was kneeling on the stainless steel sink when I grapped hold of the output wires of the ballast. When I picked myself up off the floor I made sure to turn the switch off !

First good zap I got was from a metal 3Ø 220/380 Volts plug while inserting it in the cast iron receptacle, The earth wire was loose and so was one of the phase wires which made contact with the casing of the plug. I was around 15 and it happened on the farm in The Netherlands. AAuucchh!!

I had a few zaps from 220 - 230 Volts more due my own mistake and not testing or checking the on / off switch myself. I have learned from my stupid mistakes and "test prove test" and not assume things are off.

The biggest jolt I had was while on a 33 kV cable fault and my mate and I were thumpering at 32 kV dc, 1 pulse every 3 seconds. We prelocated the fault, then when the digger opened up the hole next to a commercial driveway, and exposed the cables, no external damage visible, (they all had previously been repaired before) we had to listen with the microphone which cable made the most noise to id the correct cable prior to cutting, well my mate put the microphone on the metal zippy sleeve while I had the other microphone and headphones on. WAAAUUUUWWW. : We were both jolted about 2 metres away into the soil, I saw blue sparks in my eyes, so did my mate and had a zap through his leg as well, but both unharmed but shaken allright. One microphone was arcing to the cable while the other was still on a concrete drive nearby. We survived :and so did the listening equipment. In hindsight we were thuping from about 1 kilometre away at 32 kV dc, where the fault was the arc would go to the screen of the cable and back to the thumper, must have had at least a couple of kV's at 1500 Joules. Lesson Use HV gloves while touching a HV cable with listening equipment.

The first real good belt I remember getting was at Gramma's place.. She had this extension cord that the end was a molded rubber triple tap kinda thing.. Similar to what you see on those dollar store specials you can buy today.. Anyway the one receptacle on the cord, the brass contacts were almost flush with the rubber the cord end was made of.. Anyway I KNEW what it was like to touch a 9V battery to yer tongue, and I saw perfect oppertunity to see what 120V TASTED LIKE... Licked the end of that cord, and felt like someone detonated a bomb in my mouth.. I couldn't taste food for a week...

Got another good belt at school once.. highschool autoshop, doing the " check for spark test" on an old '79 Ford LTD we had there.. It had spark.. went right out of the screwdriver shat, around the handle and into my thumb... Screwdriver ended up somewhere across the shop!

I remember getting zapped a couple of times when I was 5 or 6. A lamp cord and a medicine cabinet receptacle come to mind. Over the years, I got my knuckles tickled several times while troubleshooting broadcast monitors and TV sets. Never with a high voltage anode or focus voltage.

The most recent zap was while recovering from a substation lightning hit. A section current or voltage transducer faulted over internally, and elevated an analog input card to roughly 600VDC. I'm used to being very cautious around my mains, control points or permissive switches because I know there is 120VAC or 132VDC there. 600+ on an analog card is unusual and was caused by a carbon trailing on a PCB. I caught a tingle through my knuckle to the RTU cabinet and was surprised by the meter reading I got. I might never see that again but I wrote a memo to my fellow TEs to be on the lookout for it.
Joe

I lit myself up in a 480v control panel at the age of 21. I tried to push a contactor closed with my pocket knife which slipped off the plastic button and touched a live contact. I was standing on a wet 8" pipe. I have been bitten by 277 lighting circuits since but that was the worst ever!

Bump-bump-a-do-wah-a-bump-bam-boo!!

Come on folks, surely you all have some more stories....

Oh man, I don't think I can even come close to counting the number of times I've been shocked, it's embaressing. First time was on a weedwhacker plug that had come partially out from the extension cord. I was probably about 8 or 10 and didn't even know that I'd been shocked until later.

I've probably been shocked 4 times mucking about with live 120V receptacles without their covers. You'd think I'd learn, but noooo, I'm always TOO CAREFUL to bother with that! It's all been one-hand shocks though, and has never been more than an unpleasant tingle.

The worst shock wasn't even my fault, was a manufacturing defect on a Delta table saw- the assembler had driven a screw holding the power cutoff switch directly through the black wire coming in off the cord. I used it for over a year without noticing, then zapped myself twice- first time I was pretty sure was a shock but had no idea where it came from- I mean, the whole thing is plastic, how could I get shocked from that? Second time hurt like a bitch though, and I frisked that mofo with my multimeter until I discovered the problem- that ONE screw on the entire face was hot, and the tilt lever was grounded to the motor casing; I must have been standing ever so slightly different that day where I brushed them both while turning off the saw. Didn't even get so much as an apology from delta, but they did send me a replacement power cord...

I DID take some pictures... is this worthy of a photo discussion thread of its own? I've got a slew more photos:
<IMG SRC=\"http://img486.imageshack.us/img486/2614/delta36560shockcw6.th.jpg\">


My worst injury from from an old motorcycle battery I'd pulled from a dead UPS and jerry-rigged to a small inverter during 8 days without power. I was disassembling it and accidentally shorted out the cell- with a piece of #22 speaker wire! The insulation instantly boiled off the wire, taking a damned long channel of skin along my thumb and forefinger with it

I'm happy to say I've never been shocked in my professional life, which is good because 120V is dangerous enough- I sure as hell don't want to become a 480V conductor!

[This message has been edited by SteveFehr (edited 08-16-2006).]

Steve,
If you'd like some pictures posted, send them over to me and I'll throw them up for you.