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[Frank DeWitt]

Most of the bucket trucks now have fiberglass booms and pneumatic controls, and the line crews use pneumatic power tools. That greatly reduces -- but does not necessarily eliminate -- the voltage potential a lineman would experience. However, it doesn't protect them from contacting multiple conductors.

Getting "zapped in the ear" may have seemed like no big deal because the contact patch was probably small, the skin on the ear may have been dry (high resistance), and any muscular contraction would likely have drawn the victim away from the conductor. All that contributes to minimize injury. But any shock is a big deal -- it means either there is a fault or someone didn't follow procedure or both. At a minimum, it is a close call and should be taken seriously.

Even with everything under him being non conductive  he still good have been zapped.  Watch the video of the electrician moving from a helicopter to high voltage cables.  He starts with a stick to bring himself and the helicopter up to the voltage of the lines and there is a considerable arc as he does it.  In that case there is clearly no conductor to earth except the air.

The good news is the current would be very low.

[John Roberts {JR}]

If he was up in an insulated bucket the shock was probably more like a static zap driving his bodies capacitance.  Plenty of voltage but very low current. If he was grounded he probably would not be talking about it.

JR

[Stephen Swaffer]

I was talking to a city power guy last week, and he said he recently got "zapped in the ear" by a 7,600 volt wire hanging down that he didn't see while he was up in the bucket. He was laughing like it was no big deal. I was just a bit terrified at the thought of getting 7,600 volts AC anywhere near me. Or am I just being paranoid? 

I have a truck insulated for 69kV-with hydraulic controls and PTO for tools-I am pretty comfortable around 7600 volt lines-though my definition of around is greater than 15 feet away. IMO opinion "not seeing" anything when working around live wires in a bucket is carelessness (you have pretty good visibility -perhaps I should edit that to not seeing anything when working around live wires is careless.  The guys with the aluminum ladder didn't get a second chance to see the wire.

If I know I am taking a chance-wiring something live, etc-and I make sparks, or make a mistake and blow up an electrolytic cap like I did earlier today, I laugh about that.  If I get zapped by something I didn't see I probably belong in an asylum cause I will chew myself out for it for quite a while- 7600 volts? I'm not sure Mike is paranoid enough!

Just came across this quote- "It is better to be careful 100 times than to get killed once."

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