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[Mike Sokol]

And this in the comments.
You are extremely paranoid. Why would anyone carry a tester around all the time unless a problem was expected or they plan on working with electrical appliances.

The comments are both interesting and a bit crazy at the same time. While you don't want to be paranoid about everything, you can certainly teach your kids that feeling a shock isn't normal and they need to tell someone in authority who will take it seriously. I was talking to a business associate the other week who told me his teenage daughter had dragged out his old guitar and amp in the basement. She and her friends were taking turns getting shocked from the guitar and laughing about it like it was a fun game. He wasn't too concerned at first until he read one of my articles about hot-skin shocks and called me to see if a guitar could shock someone enough to kill them. Of course the answer is YES. The real problem is that lots of shocks aren't harmful until the right combinations of circumstances occur. Maybe there's a little more dampness in the grass or concrete or you kick off your flip-flops and your hands are wet. In my NSZ seminars I tell everyone that it's NEVER acceptable to feel a shock from any appliance or piece of sound gear. If you do feel a shock, then the gear has lost its ground and there's potentially deadly voltage on it.

[Stephen Swaffer]

A ground wire between two light posts on the field did not connect to the circuit breaker,

I would be worried if it did!  Obviously, the press and general public can not be relied on to give technically accurate information.

On interesting thing is the blame placed on workmanship.  A missing ground should not happen, of course.  But the last major electrical work was 11 years ago.  Assuming that the lights were part of that and that they are metal halide, they would be nearing "end of life" expectancy-and a common failure mode is for a ballast to short to ground.  Properly grounded, this results in a tripped breaker.  (I would hope that someone did not remove a ground to remedy that problem.)  A short is not necessarily bad workmanship. 

[Jonathan Johnson]

A short is not necessarily bad workmanship.

But an open ground is. Of course, there could be corrosion or some other damage that causes an open ground, but even that falls to workmanship: failure to properly install or protect the conductor/connector in the former, and failure to recognize and properly repair damage in the latter.

Even the short that "is not necessarily bad workmanship" could be attributed to poor design that doesn't protect against failure (although providing grounding means could be considered protecting against failure) or poor choice of installation materials (using wire rated for 90 degrees C instead of 105 degrees C, for example. if the device specifies the higher rating).

[Stephen Swaffer]

Obviously, workmanship played a significant role-its just the random comments really dissing the electricians-as if they had never had a bad day or made a mistake.  But that is one reason grounding/bonding must be taken seriously-it can literally mean life or death for someone.  A lot of gear has the capability to short to ground when a component fails-if that time could be predicted it would simply be taken put of service.  Whether wire was overloaded, degrading insulation causing a short, or a bad ballast, or any other scenario-a good solid ground would have made the problem obvious before someone was killed.

IMO, grounding and bonding connections should be viewed as the most important connections made in the installation-not just done with the attitude of "getting past inspection." -or as an after thought.  Most responsible electricians I know make it a habit to connect grounds first-every time.

[ProSoundWeb Community]