Share your near-death experiences here!

[Gregishome]

People need to know what they are working with sometimes...

Tell us about your experience while working with electricity to where that you got shocked sooo bad, that you thought you were going to, " Give up the ghost ". .

I'll start with mine. It was 1970 and I was 18 y.o., and just out of trade school and had went to work for a elec/hvac/plumbing company. It was a Sunday and the whiskey distillery where we doing a pipe fitting project, was closed. It was just me and the pipefitter working in the room full of huge 22,000 gallon stainless steel whiskey tanks...

The PF needed the power removed from a 240 volt flow control valve so that he could remove it and re-pipe the line. Being a Sunday, there were no maintenance men on site and there was no disconnect on the valve. So, the PF looked at me and said, " Well boy, your the electrician here , get up there and unwire that valve so we can get done and go home " ...

I knew better than to work it hot, but he was the foreman and I didnt want to get fired on my first job. So I got on top of the tank with my insulated handle Klein tools and had to turn sideways to get to the valve. My shoulder was wedged between the top of the SS tank that had moisture on it, and the ceiling's steel bar joist. ...

I was being REAL careful and pulling one conductor loose at a time. Just as I was puling the last one back out of the way, it sprang loose from my pliers and wedged itself against my arm that was pinched in between the braces of the bar joist...

As the current went though me I couldnt get unstuck from between the ceiling's steel bar joist and tank. As the current kept pulsing through me, the only thing I know that saved me was that my body starting jerking so hard, it finally cleared itself from the ceiling joist. I still dont like pipe fitters to this day.

 

[mrpizza]

I had a newer guy reading the schematic tell me once a wire was ground, but when I put the meter lead in it my arm jerked real hard and went numb. It was 115 VAC 3 phase on a Huey helicopter out in Iraq. (I'm in the Marines) If my arm wasn't numb, I would have punched him in the face!

 

[Roots]

I was returning to my shop late at night. I left my scan card in a different work vehicle, so I went to use my key to open the electric vehicle gate. When I put my key in to tell the motor to open the gate... it just so happened to have shorted, to top it off the outdoor box was installed improperly, and not grounded... I had to physically fall back, to pull my hand off of it. Hurt like ****** hell.

While I wasn't shocked, I was even more scared of the time that I was working on scaffolding with limited room, in a jungle gym of sorts, and performing live jumpering of 4800VAC with another individual. When the other individual got confused and almost tripped with a lead in his hand, right above me.

 

[Gregishome]

I had a newer guy reading the schematic tell me once a wire was ground, but when I put the meter lead in it my arm jerked real hard and went numb. It was 115 VAC 3 phase on a Huey helicopter out in Iraq. (I'm in the Marines) If my arm wasn't numb, I would have punched him in the face!

Glad you came out of the shock o.k. and thank you for your service to our country !

 

[SixStringMadness]

I spent a few years as an electrical foreman, and in doing so you eventually find yourself just having to work on hot something in order to get things done, and get paid. You try to avoid it, but those times you can't, you just tape stuff up, put on gloves and work it. So when you're doing so in front of a 500AMP panel, or 2400AMP MDP, you might as well call it near death. Because you're just one mistake away from it. Forget being shocked, you're one false move away from instant death. FYI, 1 AMP of current through your heart will drop you deader than a door nail.

But I can say I have had a few scares. One was when I was working in the trim out stages of a trucking company's corporate office. An apprentice who in his ambitious ways decided to wire up a three phase sub panel that fed some offices, paying little regard to where the engineer specified circuits to be connected, and just went down the line black, red, blue, black, red, blue. I wired all the other sub panels but this one. And I was not even aware it had been wired at all when I walked over to a junction box, grabbed three circuits, neutral and ground (black, red, blue, white, green) coming out of a conduit and chopped them with my wire cutters. All three circuits were obviously on different phases, and were all hotted up, so just two of them were 208VAC. Toss in an extra phase for the full three, and two good conductors to carry it back to ground, and you had a very bright flash and a very loud boom, and the trailing vibrations all the way back through the conduit. (If you've never heard this through conduit, it sounds like a metal fish-tape sitting still in the pipe, and you walked up to it and gave it one big hard jerk, but you're the one standing 75' away near this pipe, hearing someone do this)

I was also standing in front of a live 400AMP sub panel once when some flex conduit made contact with both one of the main lugs and the panel itself. I was probably blinded for a brief time, but all the lights went out. The breaker for the sub panel was tripped at the MDP. Fortunately it was in the same room (but without windows or emergency lighting), so with no light, the pitch dark, a few open panels in the room, and just blowing one up, you're a little shy about "feeling your way around" the dark electrical room to reset the breaker......

 

[Gregishome]

Dang SSM,

You must have a guardian angel sitting on your shoulder !

One of my worst electrical experiences didnt hurt me physically, but made some mental scars on me so to speak...

It was in the early 70's, I was young and working as a top helper for a industrial/commercial electrical construction company. I was working on a final trim punchlist at a hospital that we had done the electrical work on, from the mud up....

One day our foreman came up to my journeyman and I and said, "You two figure on working OT tomorrow, we have to put a 100 amp GFI breaker in the 4000 amp main switchgear....

So the next day after all the trades had left at 5:00 pm, we all gathered in the hospital mechanical room. The power was on to the hospital so the foreman wanting us to work safely but get a leg up on the job, told us to remove all of the screws from the back panel of the section we needed to put the breaker in, except the one on the top left and one on top rght....

He then said he was going to meet the power company linemen outside and see to it the power to the hospital was off, and for us to NOT remove the last two screws on the access panel until he came back and told us it was all clear...

About ten minutes passed and we watched as all of the lights in room went off and the only lights on now, was our battery floods shining on the back of the 4000 amp switch gear. Suddenly our foreman walked through the door with his flashlight on and said ," O.K guys, get it done, its cold"...

My journeyman Joe, was to my right and he reached up the six foot height needed to reach the panel screw, layed his left arm against the panel to hold it, and removed his screw with his right hand. He told me to go ahead and remove my panel screw...

I put my screwdriver in my right hand and reached up towards the screw while I layed my left arm against the panel to hold it. That is as far as I got...

I woke up with my head under a tri-leg pipe vise about 8 feet back from the main SG. I looked towards the switchgear and I heard screaming. In the small floodlit area I could see my foreman with a piece of cloth insulation wrap over the top of Joe, who was on the floor screaming. His whole left side was on fire....

They took Joe up to the local med first quickly and as we stood outside on that summer night, we could hear him screaming as they worked on him. The underside of his left arm from his shoulder to his elbow had muscle exposed and skin just drapping from it. He had on a long sleeve polyester shirt that night when he got inflamed, the poly shirt melted and just stuck to his skin...

Two days later I drove Joe back home and on that 120 mile trip home, there wasnt any conversation, just Joe moaning and fighting back tears. Little did I know at that time, that I was the cause for his agony, with the fault of some others...

 

[SixStringMadness]

WOW Greg, that is pretty intense...

 

[Gregishome]

After things calmed down a week later the info start coming out. When I laid my arm on the panel to hold it while removing the screw, it bowed in 1/8 of a inch. The manufacturer of the switchgear had put a busbar bolt in backwards, the long threaded part of the bolt was sticking out towards the metal panel. Kaboooom..

The 480 volt arc ball shorted to the metal panel and blowed it outwards, shoving me backwards while being a shield for me. I got knocked out shortly from hitting my head on the pipe vise, as I fell to the floor...

Joe wasnt so lucky, as the arc ball rolled off of the inside panel that shielded me and hit him on his left side, igniting his shirt instantly...

I was never called to court to testify as there wasnt a court case. Joe was one of the good guys that didnt believe in lawsuits so he never sought damages....

In retrospect, I knew exactly what happened that day but the case was closed so, I kept my mouth shut. Joe and I moved on to another hospital down south that was coming out of the ground and they made Joe a foreman. (duh ?) He couldnt do any physical work with his " hamburger meat" left arm. ..

I quit the electrical construction company a month later and came back home. I run in to one of the electricians that worked with Joe a couple of years later and he said Joes life had went downhill....

He started drinking, wife fooled around on him and she finally left him. That was 38 years ago and everyone involved back then is scattered to the four corners of the nation by now. . ...

I know the actual damage to Joe was caused from two other peoples mistakes. Someone sooner or later, would have leaned against that access panel and shorted it out. ..

Regardless of how it panned out though, not too many months go by that I dont think about Joe, and really wishing I had not layed my arm on that access panel.

 

[Teken]

After things calmed down a week later the info start coming out. When I laid my arm on the panel to hold it while removing the screw, it bowed in 1/8 of a inch. The manufacturer of the switchgear had put a busbar bolt in backwards, the long threaded part of the bolt was sticking out towards the metal panel. Kaboooom..

The 480 volt arc ball shorted to the metal panel and blowed it outwards, shoving me backwards while being a shield for me. I got knocked out shortly from hitting my head on the pipe vise, as I fell to the floor...

Joe wasnt so lucky, as the arc ball rolled off of the inside panel that shielded me and hit him on his left side, igniting his shirt instantly...

I was never called to court to testify as there wasnt a court case. Joe was one of the good guys that didnt believe in lawsuits so he never sought damages....

In retrospect, I knew exactly what happened that day but the case was closed so, I kept my mouth shut. Joe and I moved on to another hospital down south that was coming out of the ground and they made Joe a foreman. (duh ?) He couldnt do any physical work with his " hamburger meat" left arm. ..

I quit the electrical construction company a month later and came back home. I run in to one of the electricians that worked with Joe a couple of years later and he said Joes life had went downhill....

He started drinking, wife fooled around on him and she finally left him. That was 38 years ago and everyone involved back then is scattered to the four corners of the nation by now. . ...

I know the actual damage to Joe was caused from two other peoples mistakes. Someone sooner or later, would have leaned against that access panel and shorted it out. ..

Regardless of how it panned out though, not too many months go by that I dont think about Joe, and really wishing I had not layed my arm on that access panel.

I have no words for this . . .

Teken . . .

 

[Gregishome]

There are no words after the fact, that can truly alleviate a persons suffering.....

I think my point for taking so much time posting and re-visiting this dark part of my life, is to get people to be aware of what they doing whenever working with electricity/electrical products. ...

People make mistakes, that is just a part of living as human beings.

People need to be reminded though, that the mistake they make whenever working in the electrical field/production world, does not always have bad actions just for the person that made the mistake. See the above for a testament to this statement.

 

[Roots]

There are no words after the fact, that can truly alleviate a persons suffering.....

I think my point for taking so much time posting and re-visiting this dark part of my life, is to get people to be aware of what they doing whenever working with electricity/electrical products. ...

People make mistakes, that is just a part of living as human beings.

People need to be reminded though, that the mistake they make whenever working in the electrical field/production world, does not always have bad actions just for the person that made the mistake. See the above for a testament to this statement.

Greg that is an unbelievable testimony. I'm really sorry that happened to you and Joe, sounds like he may have experienced PTSD from the experience. It's all the more reason why working hot is essentially illegal for the vast majority of the trade now, and the abundance of NFPA 70E regulations.

I used to use similar case studies when giving safety meetings, to ask people if they thought something was safe enough to take a short cut. You simply can not evaluate the condition of something hidden, which even includes dielectric integrity.

 

[rsanter]

My drug addict soon to be x wife tried ti stab me with a 12in kitchen knife.
Good luck I turned at the right time to see the knife and dodge getting stabbed or she likely would have gotten me in the side if the neck

Bob

 

[bugnout]

Greg, thats intense. Thanks for posting. I do a lot of work at RF sites. Your story instilled in me a new respect for the circuit panels I work around and lean against daily.

 

[frank1380]

I had the bare fingers of my left hand on the metal shaft of a screwdriver holding it steady. The tip was loosening a terminal on the back of a power supply. It was hot and I shorted the same arm to the rack the power supply was mounted in. I suspect I would have clocked out if my right arm completed the circuit. I remember my arm shaking which I think separated it from the rack. I dropped the screwdriver and walked it off.

 

[mattthomas4444]

...I touched a spark plug on my mower once. Thats the worst thing I've ever felt. It had me 6 feet across the lawn in a hurry.

 

[nehog]

After things calmed down a week later the info start coming out. When I laid my arm on the panel to hold it while removing the screw, it bowed in 1/8 of a inch. The manufacturer of the switchgear had put a busbar bolt in backwards, the long threaded part of the bolt was sticking out towards the metal panel. Kaboooom...

I'm puzzled, the lineman cut the power, so where did the 480 come from?

 

[Gregishome]

Greg that is an unbelievable testimony. I'm really sorry that happened to you and Joe, sounds like he may have experienced PTSD from the experience. It's all the more reason why working hot is essentially illegal for the vast majority of the trade now, and the abundance of NFPA 70E regulations.

I used to use similar case studies when giving safety meetings, to ask people if they thought something was safe enough to take a short cut. You simply can not evaluate the condition of something hidden, which even includes dielectric integrity.

I wish I had made up the story, but its true..

I know the commercial /industrial electricians on here that may have read my story above, have already figured out how this accident happened. I was just a young pup back then, but once I got back on the job after the accident, I backtracked mentally and physically each scenario leading up to the accident. It didnt take me long to figure it out.....

It shouldnt have happened but, it did. Hopefully we get to live though others mistakes as well as our own, and if nothing else, as least learn from them..

 

[rabidsquirrel]

I'm puzzled, the lineman cut the power, so where did the 480 come from?

Hospitals usually have double ended gear, fed from both sides. I worked in a hospital that had four incoming services and seven backup generators. They could have cut power to the other side, the back up generators could have kicked on, they could have had the wrong gear, could have been in the emergency gear, etc. Too many variables.

 

[dittle fart around]

Working lighting in a store during business hours the manager said she was busy and couldn't get the breaker turned off for a while. I went outside in the rain and changed some bulbs on a scissor lift. Came back in and the manager was still busy. So I went up to the ceiling about 16ft and started to change a ballast on a flush mounted ceiling light. Two hands up the 6" dia hole, I cut the ground and return and wire nutted them. When cutting the hot conductor with my insulated dykes and wet gloves, my index finger was past the insulation on the dykes and contacted the hot wire. My muscles clamped and I couldn't free myself. I passed out, and fell to the deck of the scissor lift. When I hit the lift I came to and lowered it to the floor.
That's electrocution, the entry point was on my index finger with no exit point.

 

[Gooch]

That's electrocution, the entry point was on my index finger with no exit point.

that was an electrical shock, electrocution results in death.

 

[Gregishome]

Hospitals usually have double ended gear, fed from both sides. I worked in a hospital that had four incoming services and seven backup generators. They could have cut power to the other side, the back up generators could have kicked on, they could have had the wrong gear, could have been in the emergency gear, etc. Too many variables.

This was a small rural hospital, it had one gen set only that had the engine control selector turned to off and it was in the room behind us, it didnt fire up when all of the lights went off. .

The hospital had only one primary line run from the street, underground to the switchgear in the mechanical room.

 

[Gregishome]

Working lighting in a store during business hours the manager said she was busy and couldn't get the breaker turned off for a while. I went outside in the rain and changed some bulbs on a scissor lift. Came back in and the manager was still busy. So I went up to the ceiling about 16ft and started to change a ballast on a flush mounted ceiling light. Two hands up the 6" dia hole, I cut the ground and return and wire nutted them. When cutting the hot conductor with my insulated dykes and wet gloves, my index finger was past the insulation on the dykes and contacted the hot wire. My muscles clamped and I couldn't free myself. I passed out, and fell to the deck of the scissor lift. When I hit the lift I came to and lowered it to the floor.
That's electrocution, the entry point was on my index finger with no exit point.

Lucky you were able to stay on the scaffold, glad you had no permanent nerve damage to your hand..

Electrical shocks never affect people the same way. I know some people that have been slammed to the ground with exit wounds in there flesh and went on with life. ...

I knew a HVAC guy that was running metal duct in a crawlspace and was using the old metal case 120 volt drills, when suddenly it shorted out in his bare hand. (pre GFI/portable drill days) He is gone now.

I think it is all about how much electrical interference the heart's regular electrical pulses can stand, as to whether one survives a serious shock, or not.

 

[ghnl]

Not sure how this compares to the previous stories but the talk about hospitals reminds me of this one.

I am an ER nurse. One day a guy barges into the ER yelling that he needs help outside. I run out and find the passenger in his pick up truck (a 350 lb passenger of course) is unconscious and barely breathing.

It's raining hard and I notice lightning at the far end of the parking lot.

Anyway, I grab a stretcher, shove it up against the pick up's bench seat and bridge the gap with a spine board (plastic surf board type thing). I am drenched from the torrential rain as we struggle to slide the patient out of the truck onto the stretcher. When he is halfway out and the spine board is bending from the great weight there is a simultaneous clap of thunder & bolt of lightning.

I can smell ozone. I pat myself and decide I am OK, get the guy onto the stretcher and wheel him into the ER. As my co-workers begin to resusitate him I glance at my digital wrist watch so I can record the time.

My watch reads 88:88.

 

[Gregishome]

Way back when I was wiring houses for a living, one day I was putting the receptacles/switches on a new home that I had wired. I had not started the service on the house yet, so there was no physical ground rod installed yet...

It was raining and lightning was scattered around, so I was glad that I had some inside work to do. As I was putting a switch on and had the bare copper ground wire in my hand to install on the switch, suddenly a HUGE lightning strike hit over the top of the house....

It literally made the house look like it had huge floodlights shining in the windows. Just as this "light" hit, and I had the bare wire in my hand, I was shocked so bad that I went to my knees. I never trimmed out houses during close lightning storms again.

 

[sberry]

Not too many wiring but about killed myself countless times. One memorable, slid a bulldozer off of a wet wood truck deck, my bud shuts the engine off before it runs out of oil while I am checking myself for injury,, I said, we can't stand here laughing about it for long, get a loader and turn it back up before someone comes along and see's this, ha. I have done a lot of dangerous work over the years, had a handful of things happen, some seem in slow motion but that was about as fast as I have seen, just a zip. The truck was sitting fairly level, not so much as a guy would even notice, never gave it a second thought, spun one track to square it up,, done this a hundred times, man it just skated sideways, like ice skate.

 

[superspec]

ive only been hit with your standard home electricity a few times over the years. i guess the worst ive ever seen was my buddy around 1am trying to get his car to fire. we had just installed a jacobs electronic igintion (msd box basically) we couldnt get anything to fire off so i suggested putting a long handle craftsman screwdriver in one of the coils. he did and i bumped it over to check for spark...well we must have had spark because he ended up around 15ft away and the only thing that stopped him was the snapon toolbox. jacobs claimed iirc 50,000 volts. we left a few min later when he could finally control his arm movements.

 

[Racecarl]

The most dangerous electrical thing I have worked on are pivot irrigation systems. They are powered in a variety of ways, but the worst ones are powered by 10KW generators turned by a diesel irrigation engine that uses a cooling coil. A cooling coil takes the place of a radiator--the engine circulates it's coolant through tubes that are placed in a pipeline of cold well water. The well water absorbs the engine's heat easily and the engine has more horsepower available since the engine does not have to run a cooling fan. Even worse are irrigation engines that do not have a clutch to disengage the well--whenever the motor is running, water is pumping.

I go out to a machine that has all the bad things--diesel engine, generator, cooling coil, direct drive. The machine would not stay in line and the safety circuit would shut down the system. Each tower has a microswitch that operates a contactor that runs the motor for that tower. The end tower is controlled by a timer and the rest of the towers just keep up with the end tower. All the middle towers would get ahead of the end tower and (to make a long story short) that means that there is a short between the forward and reverse switch wires on ONE or SEVERAL towers. This machine had 10 towers so to narrow the search down I disconnected the reverse circuit wires on tower 5 and fired the machine up in forward. I put on my rainsuit and climbed tower 5, checking for stray voltage on either the outbound or inbound reverse wires. Each tower had cycled several times and I had not found any stray 120 volt spikes (did I mention how I LOATHE intermittent problems). I was watching the end of the machine and my fluke meter when I brushed up against the other reverse wire I had disconnected with my left hand. That almost knocked me off the machine and did cause me to knock my fluke meter down into the wheel track. I tripped the safety circuit and killed the machine before it ran over the meter. I clung to the tower for about 10 minutes waiting for the water to stop flowing and me to get my wits about me again. This was about 8pm and was my last call for the day. I tagged the system out of service and the next day replaced ALL the microswitches when things were dry and the power was off.

 

[Gregishome]

I'm puzzled, the lineman cut the power, so where did the 480 come from?

As I said early on, there were no actions taken from Joe against his employer or anyone else so, the incident was pushed to the rear and hushed quickly. But the incident didnt leave my mind as I was the one that caused Joe's misery, and was the "last" chain in the broken safety link...

I CANNOT PROVE THE FOLLOWING BUT, THIS IS MY TAKE ON WHAT HAPPENED AFTER I WENT BACK OVER THAT DAYS TERRIBLE EVENT IN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENED:

It is only logical that the 480 arc did not come from a dead switchgear busbar so, there had to be a source of power to the shorted bus bolt. The hospital only had one primary feed source from an aerial primary that went lateral to the hospital. The back up power gen set was turned off and it was in a room right behind me, about 50 ft away and I know it didnt fire up when the lights went out...

Here is my theory as to how the accident came about. After the foreman gave Joe and I instructions to NOT remove the access panel until he came back, he went to check on the power company linemen that were to kill the power to the hospital...

It was about 800 feet from the mechanical room where we were working to the primary power pole. I bet the foreman watched the lineman pull the knife disconnects on two of the three lines and then headed back the 800 ft. walk to tell us the power was off. ...

In his rush to get the job done and get home, he probaly assumed they would have the other disconnect pulled by the time he walked the 800 ft. to the mechanical room. ...

Wrong... Any one that has worked with linemen knows **** happens. He may have had to pull his hotstick down and adjust the hook, the knife disconnect may have been stuck and he had to take extra time to break the disconnect. ..

Anything could have happened that made the lineman pause in breaking the last phase of power to the switchgear, the same phase that shorted out against the access panel when I laid my forearm against it. ..

Well, that is my theory as to why we were working on a live gear, I may be wrong, but its the only one thats makes sense to me. God knows I spent a lot of time in mental anguish, trying to figure out why I set Joe on fire.

 

[Pure Oil]

The gravestone read; One heck of a nice guy - but - not much of an electrician!

 

[Gregishome]

The gravestone read; One heck of a nice guy - but - not much of an electrician!

Thanks for contributing to the thread Pure Oil.


Care to expand on your comment ?

 

[pcmeiners]

Wouldn't call it a near death experience but...

Was working with a large energized 25k volt DC 35 milliamp neon sign transformer, the new insulated leads were rated for >60kv. I grabbed one of the leads, but the 60k rating meant nothing, it failed (grounded via my leg). Was throne backwards due to muscle contraction, about 6 feet, hit a wall pretty hard, slid down the wall; thankfully it was direct current, otherwise I would have involuntarily gripped the wire.
For about 25 minutes I could not move a single muscle in my entire body, I keep trying to blink my eyes, move my eyes or move my pinky finger..absolutely no response. Anyway, slowly I regained muscle movement, it took me a little over an hour before I could stand up.. have to admit it was the most physically relaxing experience I have every had, but a tough way to find out my heart was in good condition.

 

[Gregishome]

Man, that had to hurt. Was there no disconnect for the sign's power ?

 

[rabidsquirrel]

thankfully it was direct current, otherwise I would have involuntarily gripped the wire.

You got that backwards. AC will give you a chance to let go. DC doesn't.

 

[nehog]

You got that backwards. AC will give you a chance to let go. DC doesn't.

And a transformer is always AC, never DC. (All neon sign transformers I've seen were AC, never seen a DC one... )

 

[pcmeiners]

"Man, that had to hurt. Was there no disconnect for the sign's power"

I only had contact with the source for a split second before I literally flew backwards so I really can say it was that painful, mostly I remember the very (almost deathly ) relaxed state I was in for an hour afterwards. As far as a switch, as a 15-16 year old invulnerable kid I didn't need no F***ing switch... I now know better, I am slightly more intelligent/vulnerable at 60.


""You got that backwards. AC will give you a chance to let go. DC doesn't."

"Merck Manual of Medical Information, Second Home Edition Online....
Alternating current … is more dangerous than direct current. Direct current tends to cause a single muscle contraction often strong enough to force the person away from the current's source. Alternating current causes a continuing muscle contraction, often preventing people from releasing their grip on the current's source. As a result, exposure may be prolonged. Even a small amount of alternating current — barely enough to be felt as a mild shock — may cause a person's grip to freeze. Slightly more alternating current can cause the chest muscles to contract, making breathing impossible. ""


"And a transformer is always AC, never DC. "
Neon transformers came in both AC and DC, had a couple smaller ones in AC (15kv 20 ma). DC types had embedded retifiers. Not sure why it was DC but it was from a monster sized sign which was located around 42nd street Manhattan.

 

[Gregishome]

"Man, that had to hurt. Was there no disconnect for the sign's power"

I only had contact with the source for a split second before I literally flew backwards so I really can say it was that painful, mostly I remember the very (almost deathly ) relaxed state I was in for an hour afterwards. As far as a switch, as a 15-16 year old invulnerable kid I didn't need no F***ing switch... I now know better, I am slightly more intelligent/vulnerable at 60.


""You got that backwards. AC will give you a chance to let go. DC doesn't."

"Merck Manual of Medical Information, Second Home Edition Online....
Alternating current … is more dangerous than direct current. Direct current tends to cause a single muscle contraction often strong enough to force the person away from the current's source. Alternating current causes a continuing muscle contraction, often preventing people from releasing their grip on the current's source. As a result, exposure may be prolonged. Even a small amount of alternating current — barely enough to be felt as a mild shock — may cause a person's grip to freeze. Slightly more alternating current can cause the chest muscles to contract, making breathing impossible. ""


"And a transformer is always AC, never DC. "
Neon transformers came in both AC and DC, had a couple smaller ones in AC (15kv 20 ma). DC types had embedded retifiers. Not sure why it was DC but it was from a monster sized sign which was located around 42nd street Manhattan.

Next question and you dont have to answer of course, why is a 15 year old doing electrical maintenance on something as dangerous as electric signs ?

 

[pcmeiners]

Wasn't doing maintenance, rigging up an experiment in my chemical lab. Please don't ask why a 15 year old had a chem lab, or what I did in it. , lets just say the NYC hazmat teams would have had a field day with all the chemicals I had.

 

[rabidsquirrel]

"Merck Manual of Medical Information, Second Home Edition Online....
Alternating current … is more dangerous than direct current. Direct current tends to cause a single muscle contraction often strong enough to force the person away from the current's source. Alternating current causes a continuing muscle contraction, often preventing people from releasing their grip on the current's source. As a result, exposure may be prolonged. Even a small amount of alternating current — barely enough to be felt as a mild shock — may cause a person's grip to freeze. Slightly more alternating current can cause the chest muscles to contract, making breathing impossible. ""

Interesting, is there a cite for that? I've seen several websites quote it, and when I went to the article the only cite I saw was a review by an editor.

 

[pcmeiners]

If you search google for.......AC or DC muscle contraction....., many references appear as to AC current causing griping of conductors versus DC , I am talking about papers written by doctors, electrical engineers, other scientist( couple links below) . Skip all the "opinions" on forums from a search on google for......which is more dangerous AC or DC....., many people get this wrong.
From my own experience I have been hit with AC and DC a number of times, with AC you just rattle, with no movement away from the source voltage ( until you consciously move), with DC contact as of the hand for instance, at minimum you arm jolts back as the muscles contract. When I was hit by the neon transformer, my back muscles caused me to form an arche, somehow I left the ground and flew backwards due to the muscle contraction, I had no time to even think of moving my self, totally involuntary.


Reference are within articles, search with the articles for "muscle" or "contraction"..

http://www.esdjournal.com/techpapr/elechazd/ehaz.htm

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/pdf/DC.pdf

 

[rabidsquirrel]

Thanks.