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

Even though I'm only 14 this year I've been shocked more times than I can remember. Mostly DC jolts, from 1.5v to 24v through "tasting" of battery terminals, experimenting...

Believe it or not, my worst shock was yesterday... the socket which I plug my computer to was flaky, I had to tape the switch halfway between the on and off positions to get it working, and it totally failed in the middle of a gaming session. Not wanting my dad to spend money to hire an electrician, I bought a socket from the DIY store, shut off the main breaker (too lazy to shut individual ones) and proceeded to replace the socket. While I was busy stripping the wires, my dad came home and he was like, "Hey, the power's off!", and before I could tell him, he turned on the main breaker. I had 240v 50hz current flowing through my fingers and palm before I knew it. Luckily, my dad heard my howling and proceeded to quickly shut the breaker. My finger has a large blister (where the phase wire was touching) and my whole arm was tingling. Still feel it now...

[This message has been edited by Frosty (edited 10-01-2006).]

Frosty,
You are one very lucky young man.
What you should have done was turn off the Circuit Breaker that supplied the circuit you were working on and locked it so that no one else can re-energise the breaker and the circuit.
This would have been a very simple job for an electrician to do, provided the wiring was rather recently installed.
A lot of people die or are badly injured because they are too mean to get a qualified electrician to do a simple job like this.
Please don't take chances like that again, you are only ever one electric shock away from death.
Money is nothing, life is everything.
BTW, Welcome to ECN.
Where abouts are you in the world?.
I note that you mentioned 240V 50Hz in your post, so that rules out the US.
Cheers,
Mike.

{Message edited to add a missing full stop}


[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 10-02-2006).]

My parents are big no-no's with electricity, they cannot change a fuse or wire a plug without scaring themselves to death with thoughts of electrocution. My parents said the socket was 'too dangerous' to change and told me to run an extension cord from other functioning sockets. I want to be an electrician when I grow up, but my parents are unhappy because they said I would get killed sooner or later. I figured I'd join because reading about experiences of veteran electricians on the field are much more helpful than watching PoCo wokemen service the big transformer near my house. Hope you don't chase me out because of my age and I can't do anything much (except wire up low voltage stuff)! Even with my (very) limited scope of electrical knowledge, I can pretty much see unsafe electrical installations everywhere. Regarding the location, I'm from Singapore.

[This message has been edited by Frosty (edited 10-02-2006).]

Frosty !

Welcome to ECN.

Which country are you from ?
UK ?
240 Volts 50 Hz. Just curious.

Play is safe mate, electricity is very dangerous.

My worst shock was aboard a Destroyer in the USN, I was called to Aft steering to Repair/fix some none functioning receptacles, I used my my meter, and determended that one of the fuzes had blown,
(On USN Ships all power is ungrounded, so every 120V circuit actually has 2 hots (at approx 60ish volts) and no neutral.)
So I walk over to the fuze panel, and start turning the thumbscrews to open the cover, (now this panel was located directly under a "Scuttle" (which is a navy term for an alleged watertight opening) well in this case the gasket on the scuttle leaked and had been leaking for some time, so the hinge across the top was beyond rusted out, it was gone.
SO when I swung the cover open, it slipped in my hands and fell into the fuze panel across the A and B terminals. which unfortunatly didn't trip the fuzes up stream, so I am standing there getting 120v from both arms, I couldn't make my hands open nor could I move my arms. (big period)
But being a quik thinking lad of 20, (and so scared that I needed to go change my shorts after this) and realizing that I had no control over my upper body, I started working on my legs, and finally fell to the deck, breaking my self free from the panel. I don't think I took any type of permenant damage from it, But (to me) the worst part of it was all this happened while I had 4 guyz watching me.
the aft steering watch, my Div Officer, an ensign, my Chief (who was an electrician) and the steer watch operator.
I have no idea how long I stood there getting shocked, To me it felt like a long time, but I heard later from the guy on steering watch that I was smoking near the end.(and I don't mean from a cigarette..... lol) To me I think I was hung up there for at least 5 min or more.
No permenant damage as far as I know.........lol Of course I have a list of friends and ex's who would disagree.......lol

Oh and someone mentioned something about Sticking a meter lead w/ the other hooked to 480V to the forhead.....

Same ship, One of my shipmates and I were trouble shooting the limit switches on a boat davit (boat davits are the (basically) winches that lift/lower small boats on/off a ship.)We had actually Red tagged the whole system, and started Troubleshooting the system, "C" was at the control cabinet w/ a simpson 260 meter, and I was out moving the limit switches. Well after awhile he stopped calling out for me to move the switch, so I went to check on him........
and he's sitting there w/ one meter lead hooked to the common (480v control system) and he's looking at the meter w/ this confuzed look on his face, and he's got the other lead in hand scratching his forehead..
and everytime the lead touches his skin, he starts these lil minor body jerks..........
I was like WTF, some ain't right here......
So I grabbed the lead of the common, and then he "wakes up", later we found out that someone had turned on the breaker for the panel w/ the red tag still hanging on it.
so w/ him usiing the meter on ohms, and having voltage present he got some strange readings, not to mention what happened when that lead touched his forehead........