bigclive Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 This is a stellar CCTV clip showing someone getting a serious hand to hand electric shock in the UK. You can see their whole body contract before they gasp "arghhh...Oh God...." and then fall off the steps still clamped firmly onto the wires, which then short out with a shower of sparks. Given the high flow of current across the chest it's a lucky escape that could have been deadly if the wires hadn't shorted and interrupted the current. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamtastic3 Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Eeeeeek!!! Pretty horrible to watch. It does put the fear into me watching things like that when you know that you've done electrical work yourself. I'd say that I'm fairly competent at basic electrics and I'm usually sensible and careful, but I still get that odd moment where I hesitate to touch the live cable, even when I fully 100% know there's no power going through it.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
callumb Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 You would at least expect him to turn off what ever he was playing about with. no? http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 your not an experienced sparks until youve had at least 1 decent shock :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 There are good sparkies, and dead sparkies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigclive Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 And there are some good sparkies who get electrocuted. :( My own worst shock was when I picked up an earthed metal controller while holding onto a metal handrail and the "earthed" controller went live at 240V. I felt it whump across my chest and went backwards while the controller flew through the air, hit a railing and went BANG!It turned out that the "factory serviced controller" had most of the PCB support spacers missing, including the brass one that earthed the case. When I picked it up the cables pulled the PCB against the case. It was an automatic barrier gate in a supermarket too. Lots of people standing watching me. <_< Closest electrical scrape ever was while disconnecting one of eight huge three phase compressors on an industrial refrigeration pack. I isolated the compressor that was being removed (the others had to keep running) and then sandwiched my body complete with sweat soaked overalls between the huge liquid receiver above the compressors and the compressors themselves. Took the top off the terminal box, tried a ratchet socket on a terminal for size, took it back off again and the compressor started! If it had started just a second earlier I'd have certainly passed a LOT of current and given I was on my own in the compressor room nobody would have heard me if I could have screamed. I'd isolated the wrong compressor. Very close. :unsure: That was with an American owned industrial refrigeration company who had a policy of making all their employees work unrealistic hours to the point of physical and mental exhaustion. Hence the silly mistake. I left that company after falling asleep at the wheel repeatedly and deciding it really wasn't a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrV Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Whatever happened to Safe Isolating Procedures Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerry davies Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Not quite that simple, Dave. When I started work and pterodactyls darkened the skies flocking to roost at the end of the day, things like that had not been written, HSE did not exist and HASAWA was a distant dream. NEBOSH? Pshaw! What was acceptable under the 200 laws that governed H&S at work was no longer so under HASAWA and things like MEWP's, NEBOSH, PASMA got invented. I personally learned the hard way in 1972 that switching supplies off and hanging the obligatory warning sign was not enough and that I needed the fuses in my pocket. Very ouch, 3 phase, scary! In the early '70's deaths at work ran at around 650/700 a year and are at 200 a year now. Things have changed beyond comprehension ("handful o' gravel" Monty Python). My generation made dramatic improvement but there was huge room for improvement back then. The challenge for the younger generations is to improve from where we are today, a much harder task than we faced. Mind you, they do seem to be breeding a better race of idiot these days! Cloning? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigclive Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 It's easy for an office worker to sit at a desk and say things like "everything should be isolated". But in reality when you are diagnosing complicated equipment the power needs to be on, even for the self diagnostics to work. Modern electrical safety legislation has been dumbed down to cater for the new breed of electricians who are little more than crash-course labourers. Are you aware that a lot of power distribution work is routinely done live to avoid regular outages? That guy working down a hole in the street splicing a new supply into an existing cable is probably doing it live because that's common practice to avoid disrupting every other business or home in the vicinity. The guy doing the live splicing is trained in that work. I have to be honest and say that for many people work needs a slight element of danger to make it worthwhile. The tradeless suit-wearing health and safety "experts" have very much stripped all the pleasure out of work and made it a chore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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