Author Topic: Has anyone here had an electric shock before?  (Read 2182 times)
Michael
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #15 on: September 18, 2022, 01:07:45 PM » Author: Michael
In my apprenticeship over twenty years ago I had an accident on a electric powerline. With my right hand I touched a live wire and I could not let it go anymore. The current cross my body and eventually it left through my both wet feet, shoes and climbing irons into the earth wire.

Other than that I got several times very short electric shocks.
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #16 on: September 18, 2022, 01:10:59 PM » Author: Rommie
Ye gods, how did you get free from that..?  :o :poof:
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #17 on: September 18, 2022, 01:38:03 PM » Author: Michael
As my body was shaking the spike of the left climbing iron lost the contact to the earth wire and the circuit through my body interrupted. Then I could take off my hand. After that I was bit paralyzed and it took a while till I could descent the pole. On one finger I still have a burn mark where the current was entering my body.
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #18 on: September 18, 2022, 01:43:45 PM » Author: Rommie
Well you don't need me to tell you how lucky you were there, you could have been  :DeAtH: so easily  :o
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #19 on: September 18, 2022, 07:42:45 PM » Author: 108CAM
The only accidental shock I've had was a low voltage DC jolt from an electric fence.
I used to stick the tip of my tongue against the ends of barrel plugs and it felt like I had a sewing needle pressing against the end of my tongue.
My dad also challenged me to stick my tongue across the terminals of a 9V battery to see what would happen and I felt a tingly sensation throughout the whole of my tongue.
Still have yet to receive an AC shock.
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #20 on: September 18, 2022, 10:39:27 PM » Author: funkybulb
I have many times had 120 volt though me usng a neon bulb
Human ballast for a NE 2 neon the current  is so low I dont feel any thing but I was very well insulated from ground. 

Other than that my painful shocking experance is chewing on
A vaccumme cleaner cord when I was 2 years old.

 Now my best shocking story is old 1960s briggs and stration
 Lawn mower engine.   It one of those metal tab u push over onto the spark plug to kill the engine.  Lot times u would have go
Find a stick or somthing to push it over.  So one day I got a damp green stick and  that high ignition voltage went though  me about 50 Kilovolts and I was holding the mover handle at time.  That was my worse shock in my life
 
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #21 on: September 18, 2022, 10:53:35 PM » Author: xmaslightguy
Yeah, I've been shocked (by 120v) multiple times, most of them from Christmas lights, but also once by a metal aquarium top that had a wire come loose inside or something(I was fairly young, my dad fixed it so I'm not sure what exactly the problem was) Also got shocked once by a shoplight where the incoming power wire had a bad/bare spot causing the frame to become electrified...
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #22 on: September 19, 2022, 12:29:49 AM » Author: RyanF40T12
zapped quite a few times not fun.  120 and 220.  220 knocked me to my knees.  Oi. 
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #23 on: September 19, 2022, 01:10:28 AM » Author: WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA
I have had multiple experiences of getting electric shocks before. When I was young, I used to stick my finger into empty E26 light sockets and gotten a shock from there. I have several notable memories regarding electric shocks. In one case, I tried to plug in a broken incandescent C7 bulb into an outlet and the lamp made a loud pop and shocked me really badly when it came into contact with the 120v mains. I also plugged in an LED diode into 120v mains and heard a loud pop and got shocked before as well. In addition, I also received a shock when I was trying to change a CFL light bulb in the basement of my grandparents' house. While trying to do so, my fingers accidentally came into contact with live metal and the electric shock caused me to drop one of the CFL lamps and the lamp broke into smithereens. I had to evacuate and ventilate the basement for a period of time. Eventually, I replaced the light fixture and cleaned up the broken CFL lamp that caused this nasty experience. I also had gotten shocked a number of times when I was trying to handle some old metal preheat fluorescent tube fixtures that had some crumbling wiring. I also had an experience of getting shocked when I was touching a cord that leads to Christmas lights at my parents' house.
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #24 on: September 20, 2022, 05:05:06 PM » Author: James
Some of you had some pretty nasty shocks and near misses!  But fortunately no electrocutions (which by definition are lethal, whereas an electric shock is survived).

Aside from early childhood shocks from Christmas lights at 240V, the multiple small lamps limiting the current to non-lethal values, I only had one really nasty shock. 

In work we have some kind of semi-lethal home-made lampholder adapters consisting of E40 lamp caps, with another different lampholder fixed to the top of that.  Very convenient to be able to run any kind of lamp in an E40 holder.  One of these adapters had been badly made, with a couple of screws bored in through its upper rim and standing above the surface.  Very stupidly I took that to run a specially-capped HPS reflector inside an integrating sphere for light measurements.  And even more stupidly decided to switch to the next lamp without shutting off the power.  Despite wearing gloves, while unscrewing the first lamp my left hand made contact with one of those protruding screws, while my right hand was gripping the steel pole that holds the lampholder at the centre of the sphere.  With the current being limited by a 250W SON ballast, the circuit breaker in the lab did not trip!  For what felt like an eternity of vibrating uncontrollably at 50Hz I could neither release my grip nor even scream for help.  Fortunately within a few seconds a colleague saw what was happening and hit the breaker - but for many years later I had the imprint of an M4 screw head burned into my hand!
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #25 on: September 20, 2022, 09:11:29 PM » Author: icefoglights
Been shocked more times than I can remember.

Now my best shocking story is old 1960s briggs and stration
 Lawn mower engine.   It one of those metal tab u push over onto the spark plug to kill the engine.  Lot times u would have go
Find a stick or somthing to push it over.  So one day I got a damp green stick and  that high ignition voltage went though  me about 50 Kilovolts and I was holding the mover handle at time.  That was my worse shock in my life
 
There is one I do remember!  We used an old Coleman Powermate generator to run power tools while building our house.  The "kill switch" (little metal tab that shorts out the spark plug) had broken off, so we had to use some sort of substitute.  Most common was a claw hammer with a wooden or fiberglass handle.  At one point we started using a cut off piece of rebar instead.  One evening, I grabbed the rebar, leaned over and steadied myself on the generator frame and touched the rebar to the spark plug  :o :curse: :curse:
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Michael
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #26 on: September 21, 2022, 12:05:30 AM » Author: Michael
Well you don't need me to tell you how lucky you were there, you could have been  :DeAtH: so easily  :o

Yes indeed! Since I could not breath in due to paroxysm I was about to suffocate.

One possible thing which I got since this event is that my blood pressure is rather low. Just about below the average.

My very first shock was when I was 3 or 4 years old. I was playing with a floor lamp and while inserting the plug into the extension cord it happened. The lamp and extension cord had old Type 1 2- pole connectors which were way behind todays standards.
« Last Edit: September 21, 2022, 12:11:29 AM by Michael » Logged
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #27 on: September 29, 2022, 12:30:40 AM » Author: flyoffacliff
Many times. I don’t work on wiring a ton, and I am only 25 years old! Lol:
1.   As a kid, dropped something metal across a loose plug-in carbon monoxide alarm, and it hit hot and natural. Big pop. Before the breaker trips, it burned the wall plate and melted about about 40% of the way through the blades on the plug!
2.   Plugging extension cord in by reaching behind furniture, and finger hit the hot blade when the plug was halfway in.
3.   I got shocked at work about a renovation was done, just by touching a metal junction box. The electrician found there was a ground spliced into a hot! Idk how that happened, as they did pretty good quality work there.
4.   I was working on an in-store kiosk, and there was a heatsink on a power supply board that was energized. It had a danger symbol on it, but I had never seen a heatsink energized before, so I did not expect it.
5.   Was updating telecom wiring, and got shocked by touching an old phone line in the basement. Checked with the meter and it was reading like 183v DC or something weird like that! Tech thought the phone line was reused for a different type of circuit at some point but was not properly disconnected.
6.   Removed a cover from an outdoor GFCI, which was crammed into a small box masonry box. One of the side screws brushed up against the metal box and half the screw was vaporized! Little bits of molten metal shot out and one landing on the LCD of my brand new multimeter and burned a little dot on the screen.
7.   Was working at a water park and had to lug all this vacuum equipment around the pool area. Really hard to do safely sometimes. I got shocked multiple times. Like the water from my arm would drip down the cord while holding it, for example.
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #28 on: September 29, 2022, 01:37:40 AM » Author: Medved
I think the only way to really avoid this is to not go closer than 10 to anything electrical. In other words once you are doing anything with anything electrical, it will get you at some point. Of course, when working with high voltage the direct "hit" becomes the end so there the procedures have to be stricter, but you will get a few kicks from just indirect coupling (bad or missing shorting,...).
The thing is to not only be careful to not get into contact with anything live in the first place, but as well work so if it does have the least chance to really harm you. So watch for and stay away from grounded things around you, plus when doing something in a place where open live conductors are present, strictly follow the "one hand" rule - one hand doing the work, the other kept away (so when you get zapped, the current is less likely to flow through the heart)...
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Re: Has anyone here had an electric shock before? « Reply #29 on: September 29, 2022, 02:11:29 PM » Author: Rommie
The golden rule here is never to work on live equipment unless it is absolutely unavoidable. Regulation 14 of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 states:

Quote
Work on or near live conductors

14.  No person shall be engaged in any work activity on or so near any live conductor (other than one suitably covered with insulating material so as to prevent danger) that danger may arise unless –

(a) it is unreasonable in all the circumstances for it to be dead; and

(b) it is reasonable in all the circumstances for him to be at work on or near it while it is live; and

(c) suitable precautions (including where necessary the provision of suitable protective equipment) are taken to prevent injury
.
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Ria (aka Rommie) in Aberdeen
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