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Author Topic: What 14,000 volts can do to you  (Read 12628 times)

Mike Sokol

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What 14,000 volts can do to you
« on: February 24, 2014, 05:35:23 PM »

Here's the eyes of an electrician who took a 14,000 volt shock through his shoulder and lived. Kind of looks like custom contact lenses for some rock star.

See http://ecmweb.com/shock-amp-electrocution/electricians-eyes-damaged-shock-incident for the full story.

Andrew Broughton

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Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2014, 05:53:37 PM »

I thought you were going to show this video.
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Stephen Swaffer

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Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2014, 10:24:36 PM »

Any time you get into a situation where 600 Volts is considered low voltage its time to walk very very carefully!  I am more than happy to let others have the thrill.

I used to have to work on an inductive welder that used a vacuum tube oscillator running at 13.8 kV.  Fortunately it was fairly well behaved and low maintenance.  We ran it at about 20 Kw, though it was capable of 100 Kw.  Doubt I'll run into any audio stuff putting out that kind of power any time soon though-which is fine by me.

Its amazing to me that he survived-and still has some vision to live by.
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Mike Sokol

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Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2014, 06:52:25 AM »

I thought you were going to show this video.

My students at school regularly find this video and play it for the new kids, some of whom look ill after watching it. Interestingly, many of them think it's somehow a CG faked effect. But I'm pretty sure it's just some dumb guy with a death wish who's now dead. 

In the thread where we're discussing overhead high-tension lines inducing voltage in vehicles below them there's a bunch of references in the Bonneville Power paper about farmers maintaining a 14-ft clearance between the top of their machinery and drooping high-voltage lines. Since the 28-ft suggested minimum ground clearance PoCo tries to maintain is an average, a tall hill can get the ground MUCH closer to the lines than that. And because farm machinery is often 14-ft tall, they tell me there's been instances where a worker was standing on the top of his "combine" and accidentally contacted a low-hanging 250,000 volt line with his body. I'll bet that was a REALLY BIG bang!!!

Milt Hathaway

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Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #4 on: February 26, 2014, 12:33:47 PM »

During my time as a HAM our club once hosted a rep from the local electrical utility. His job was to scare us into being DAMN CAREFUL when erecting towers and such. He brought many slides of the gory aftermath of electrocutions and near-electrocutions. At the time buried services were much more dangerous due to the typically closed spaces and proximity to ground (aka: ability to easily accidentally complete a circuit), and because electrical paths often bypassed the heart these guys often lived with horrific injuries.

His lecture was very persuasive.

There are sites where these images can be found online, but I ain't linking them here.
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Jason Glass

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Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #5 on: February 26, 2014, 01:23:40 PM »

During my time as a HAM our club once hosted a rep from the local electrical utility. His job was to scare us into being DAMN CAREFUL when erecting towers and such. He brought many slides of the gory aftermath of electrocutions and near-electrocutions. At the time buried services were much more dangerous due to the typically closed spaces and proximity to ground (aka: ability to easily accidentally complete a circuit), and because electrical paths often bypassed the heart these guys often lived with horrific injuries.

His lecture was very persuasive.

There are sites where these images can be found online, but I ain't linking them here.

Speaking of antenna towers, you don't even need to touch a cable to get cooked if you climb the wrong tower at the wrong time:

http://www.sbe.org/sections/documents/RFSafetyTrainingHandout.pdf
http://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/radio-frequency-safety
http://transition.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/rf-faqs.html#Q9

Jonathan Johnson

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Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #6 on: February 26, 2014, 02:35:01 PM »

Speaking of antenna towers, you don't even need to touch a cable to get cooked if you climb the wrong tower at the wrong time:

Legend has it that the microwave oven was invented by an engineer who was working with radar tubes. A candy bar in his pocket melted when he walked near an energized one, when inspiration struck.

I've also heard anecdotes of homeless people climbing radio towers to find a "warm" spot to sleep in front of a microwave antenna. Not that the spot was warm, but the RF warmed their bodies.
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Chris Clark

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Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #7 on: February 26, 2014, 08:15:04 PM »

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Cailen Waddell

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Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #8 on: February 26, 2014, 10:55:48 PM »

So a friend of mine sent this to me.  She is a local 2 hand in
Chicago...  The caption was, this is what happens when you disconnect energized feeder.  No way to verify but damn...
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Mike Sokol

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Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2014, 12:23:06 AM »

So a friend of mine sent this to me.  She is a local 2 hand in
Chicago...  The caption was, this is what happens when you disconnect energized feeder.  No way to verify but damn...\

Please don't let this thread get too grizzly. Let's do links with a warning, but be careful of posting embedded pictures of burnt meat. But yes, that's exactly what happens from arc flash explosions.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2014, 12:42:37 AM by Mike Sokol »
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ProSoundWeb Community

Re: What 14,000 volts can do to you
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2014, 12:23:06 AM »


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