My first electrical shock - MAN, am I dumb.

gma2rjc

........

Yoyizit

That's because your brain was in the 'reset' mode during this 1/4th of a second.

"
Post-traumatic amnesia is generally due to a head injury (e.g. a fall, a knock on the head). Traumatic amnesia is often transient, but may be permanent of either anterograde, retrograde, or mixed type. The extent of the period covered by the amnesia is related to the degree of injury and may give an indication of the prognosis for recovery of other functions. Mild trauma, such as a car accident that results in no more than mild whiplash, might cause the occupant of a car to have no memory of the moments just before the accident due to a brief interruption in the short/long-term memory transfer mechanism. The sufferer may also lose knowledge of who people are, they may remember events, but will not remember faces of them
"

Here it is
". . .the current typically rises to a level of about 25 mA where muscular contractions onset. Then the person is either thrown clear of the circuit. . ."
so 500vdc/0.025 = 20,000 ohms skin/body resistance

You're lucky you weren't at 3000 or 300 ohms.

gdoucette

Thanks Gary. That story made my day, I haven't laughed like that in a long time.

But back to the topic, we have a family friend who is an electrician who comes over to help me with electric when I'm out of my league. I had a hack job in my kitchen where two switches (less than 18" apart) were running the same fixture, but noe as a 3way. So he pulls off the plates and starts checking the wiring. I say "Should I go throw the breaker?" and so sooner did I say the words ... he accidentally touched a hot wire to the inside of the box ... big white flash ... my wife and I jumped in surprse ... and Raymond turns around, licks his lips and says "mmm.... 120" and goes back to work. Later he told me that he rarely cuts the power in 120v circuits, it's just a waste of time ... 240v on the other hand, that's a different story!

canadaclub

Think electrical shock is bad? NEVER touch bare phone wires when a call comes in I used to be a phone tech and let me tell you, the electrical shocks I've gotten in all my years are nuttin compared to that

nap

I have a friend that does a lot of phone work and always tells the story about the time he was punching down a bunch of cables. He happened to be leaning on some active wires in a punch down block and about that time a phone call comes in.

lmccluer

I too used to do phone installs. Like you, the worst shock I ever have gotten is when holding on to the wires and a call coming in.

All I know is I was wrapping the green wire around the post and just getting ready to wrap the red, and the next thing I know, I was laying about 10 ft from the box, and had peed my pants, and my right hand was numb.

I received other smaller shocks in the following years, but nothing like that!

Red Squirrel

I got my first shock when I was like 10. I was always interested in electricity and would play with batteries and stuff all the time. Then one day I thought to myself it would be cool to use the christmas light bulbs, the C9's to be exact. So I made a socket out of a paper clip (this is where it gets good) and inserted it into the receptacle with the light bulb screwed in. It was basically a loop with an end sticking out. To finish the circuit I'd use a small wire to go into the other hole of the plug and then the end of the bulb, and to my amazement, it lit! So I was playing with stuff like this for a while, then my fingers slipped... youtch! When I got more brave I also got curious what a short circuit was like with 120. That was quite the surprise the first time I did that.

Within weeks I had knex and lego transmission lines going all over the basement with lights and other electrical stuff and if one slightly tipped or fell it would totally short out. My friend's dad was an electrician so we often raided his garage for "cool stuff". We were bad.

kwikfishron

I got zapped when I was a teen messing around with an old (unplugged) 1000 watt tube linear I had. Threw me back across the BR and left a white callus like dot on my finger that remained there for many months.

My first lesson on capacitors.

__________________

Red Squirrel

Oh capacitors are fun. Out of bordom once I was playing with a small one with a battery and making it power a small motor for a few turns. Then I thought it would be cool to put it at the wall end of an adapter and send current through the output end to charge it, which essentially stepped it up. Then I put the capacitor at the output end and touched the wall end, it was being stepped up again. WHY I did this I don't know, but I will never do it again.