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

My first experience with electricity occurred when I was 2 and discovered the keys fit perfectly into a 15 amp outlet. Very educational.

My most exciting electrical experience occurred on my fist day on the job in a theater scene shop in Charlottesville VA. I was instructed to move a Table Saw from one room to another. The saw was plugged into a 50amp 240v Nema 15 style outlet mounted upside down (cord tail went up)! As I gingery removed the plug a loose screw dropped inside (as best we could tell while dissecting the slag). Instantly I had a four inch blue fireball hovering above my hand (seemed like forever). The breaker tripped, the fireball disappeared and I was left with a ring of ash around my thumb and index finger. Aside from scaring the crap out of me, it did no permanent damage. And that was just my first day of work!

SD

I've been shocked numerous times, hate it every time . Some Mechanical gas pumps with Electric reset have a small brush motor inside a Exp Prf enclosure. Well they break and you have to take the cover off the enclosure and try the reset to see why it ain't turnin'. In the winter I sometimes wear cotton gloves and they generally have some gas on them. Well needless to say when the brush arced right next to my glove, my glove caught on fire . I shook that baby off faster than you can blink an eye. Pretty comical now but I checked my pants right after it happened

I believe I am the DUMBEST of them all....

I have 2 major situations...1 for A.C. and 1 for D.C., I guess I wanted to FEEL the difference !!

First major shock occured while I was working in my Boss's Carpet Cleaning Van.
I was cutting out some left-over carpet to line the floors of the work van with a razor-knife. Wanting to get an accurate fit, I placed the carpet inside the van to trim it up in place and didn't notice the 2 gauge wire comming from the Carpet Cleaning Machine starter. So, I began to cut along the carpet when I skinned the 2 gauge wire with the razor-knife when "POP"....the razor blade connected the wire and the metal floor-board at the same time, (thus ARC WELDING was invented)and if that wasn't enough to make your day more interesting, when the FLASH occured, I pulled my hand with the KNIFE in it backwards real fast and then forward into my other hand holding the carpet !!!!!!! Burned and Stabbed !!!!

The next was more recent....
I was at work troubleshooting a 240vac heater relay, that was sticking and forcing the heater to over-heat.....
I had the STAINLESS STEEL cover open and had a meter out to test when the over-heating caused the circuit breaker to trip.....I yelled at my partner to just let it stay tripped so I could tighten the screws up on the relay with an ALLEN/BRADLEY pocket tweaker screwdriver !!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!BIG DUMB MISTAKE !!!!!!!!!!!
With 1 hand firmly placed on the back of the STAINLESS STEEL cover and the other holding the tweaker, (with an un-insulated shaft) on the 240vac relay lead screw, My partner (who DID NOT hear me) re-energized the circuit breaker and ME !!!!

WOW !!!! How lucky are any of us who have been shocked ????
I have learned to NEVER deviate from LOCK OUT,TAG OUT proceedures AGAIN !!!!!
The ONLY difference between an CLOSE CALL and DEATH is LUCK !!!!!
Please slow down and use LOTO ALWAYS !!!!!

MIKE

I got banged a few times. When I was 8 or so I stuck my finger between the prongs. Ouch, but not a big deal.

I also got hit when I unplugged a Battery Backup unit for a computer. (UPS) Not sure why, I might post a question about it here.

Another one I remember from when I was young is pulling the plug on a clothes spin-dryer while the lid was still shut and the motor turning.

It provided quite a forceful demonstration that a motor can also act as a generator when I touched the prongs.

People often ask me if I have ever been electrocuted. I always set them straight by explaining that electrocution is death. But yes I have been shocked. As an apprentice I learned how travelers on a 3way switch work the hard way. I was working on a 3way swich that I was informed was off. Lesson #1, always test first. I got hit off one traveler, so being the smart apprentice, I went and flipped the switch on the other 3way thinking I was turning it off, and promptly got shocked off the second traveler.
It was stupidity on my part and luckily we were all able to laugh about it later.

I am sitting here in my office laughing out loud at these stories. I think my top 3 are Sparky66wv, Harold endean and of course currently.

I saw one guy get shocked while rewiring a 480 volt fan motor. It three him about 10 feet. My first thought was trying to remember CPR.
Scott

Stuck a 12 vdc dewalt battery pack into the front pocket on my liberty's one day, contacts facing down forgot about the pocket full of keys in there. About 20 seconds later got kinda warm down there, pulled it out and grabbed the keys and handed to the guy next to me, he took them and then started cussing me before dropping them, had to throw the pack away, $40 shot to he!!, glad it wasn't an 18V I might not be here.

We have a tool grinder that uses a rectifier in the panel to power the table feed motor. Rectifier pooped out, and i was in the panel replacing it, I had the switch off at the I-Line buss bar so I was happily rooting around in the cabinet. Next thing I k-k-k-now is my glasses are bouncing up and down and I am sitting on my tail in the wheel lathe pit. (This lathe is so big that it sits in a 2 2/2 foot deep pit so the controls are were you can reach them). Turns out that rather than replacing the 240/120 control transformer in the cabinet, with a 480/120 transformer, they just wired a seperate feed to the controls. NOW they tell me.

TW

I have NEVER been shocked!!!
I also live on Mars and believe the CIA is watching me via the V-Chip in the TV set.
P.S. have land for sale in Florida Everglades.

OK, with that out of my system, let me do a quick describe of the wonderful times I decided to become a current carrying conductor

First experience of drawing current through my body happened around age 3 or 4, with the ever bright idea of plugging in something while holding the plug's blades.
Ohhh the vibrations!!! 120 VAC, "x" milliamperes and 60 Hz! what an eye opening experience.

Moving into working with my father, found out how to work on and around energised stuff by a systematic level of trial and error.

After becoming a full time sparky, got to learn the hands on hard way about open neutral situations or open circuitry for L-L / L-L-L loads.

Got to feel what the high leg of a 4 wire delta has to offer. On one occasion, felt what an ungrounded conductor on a 3 wire grounded delta (240 VAC) does across a semi fixed resistance / reactance (went from right hand to a bonded conduit via tear in pants on right leg).
Luckily, only had 2 instances of pushing current through my limbs at 277 VAC.

Other shock related fun includes camera flash lamp tank circuits, testing Inductors or similar coils with an ohm meter, then holding fingers across coil leads while removing a test lead, the un-discharged capacitor trick, extremely high ESD on VGA monitors (old IBM 14" VGA monochrome monitors with the glare shields added on were common blasters!), crash course in Telephone Ringer AC Voltage, finding a leaky spark plug wire, etc...

Can say this: It's been a few years since the last shock!!!....

Just wondering if I looked similar to the guy pictured below???





Scott s.e.t.