Bloody Nora Frank, that wasn't close mate that was a firkin miracle!
Are you sure you're still alive?
Are you sure you're still alive?
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Bloody cars
- Thread starter Gary820
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People accused me of being a vandal but that was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted a LITTLE spark.
Crikey Frank.
That stuff takes no prisoners. They always say it's the Amps that kills you which is true. It takes only 40 thousandths of 1 amp to kill IF it takes the right path. I'll wager the wire was close to the ground and you had an incredibly lucky escape. Had it been touching or even close to your upper body, you could have received a fatal shock.It makes me feel sick just thinking of it. It's a bit too close for comfort if you know what I mean.
At the same site meeting as above, my contact from SSE told of one attempted metal theft.
The thief removed the top from a connected and loaded substation transformer with 11Kv on the input and 400v on the output. He then pumped all the cooling oil out of it and began to reach in to undo the connections with his open ended spanner. (This made me feel sick when he told it). Of course the spanner made contact and the resulting explosion of arc flash and oil vapour igniting sent him flying 30 feet. He survived (badly burned) and was immediately prosecuted.
On another occasion a pal of mine whose workshop is across the road from a 66Kv to 11Kv sub station, lost his power followed by a loud bang. A pall of smoke started rising from the substation to which the fire brigade turned up and watched. Next day it was swarming with electricity board workers and I being me went to have a look. The guy showed me a terminal cover from the 11Kv side of one of the transformers. It was 1/2" steel plate, no bigger than a briefcase with the bottom corners cut off with a piece of 2" X 2" steel angle across the back and 12 1/2" bolt holes around the perimeter. If you say it on a table, where it should have been flat you could have easily slid a coke can under the middle and most of the bolt holes were torn to the edges. The remainder of the bolts I was told were imbedded in the switch room wall in front of the transformer.
It's easy to think it's all quite harmless but events such as this serve to indicate just what you are dealing with. Hence I have such a healthy respect for electricity.
You were so lucky that day Frank. So incredibly lucky.
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It happened at a rubbish dump where I used to go after the pub with a friend to collect all the amazing stuff people had thrown out. e.g. clocks, old radios, boxes and boxes of nuts and bolts, old books, tools etc etc. You're right SC. I had unwound about 40 feet of cable from the transformer still in the telly which was on the ground. I tied the loose end to a 1ft long stick and threw it at the cable which was only about 30 ft above the dump. I was thinking it was a good shot when all hell broke loose. We beat a hasty retreat. When our eyesight had recovered we returned with guilty consciences to make sure all was safe. Police and MEB had arrived staring at a large hole in the gravel road and a large corona around the damaged HT cable. To alleviate my conscience as much as possible I explained I had witnessed 2 youths throwing a wire over. They did not believe me. At this time I was wearing a pair of trousers I had borrowed from my friends brother who was 6ft 4 inches. They were rolled up a lot. I was missing one blown off shoe and had a sizzled nylon jumper on and singed hair. Not very obvious. LOL.
Gary820
Well-Known Member
Bloody hell Frank that's a lucky escape from that!!!!
The week after I did my training and qualifications at our training centre a lad had an incident, connected 2 cells together wrong and got a bang off it.
X5 hydrid battery and it'd be easy to do of not concentrating due to the layout. Luckily only 2 cells so got minor injuries only but could've easily been the final connection!!
That was under supervision in a very controlled environment too.
The week after I did my training and qualifications at our training centre a lad had an incident, connected 2 cells together wrong and got a bang off it.
X5 hydrid battery and it'd be easy to do of not concentrating due to the layout. Luckily only 2 cells so got minor injuries only but could've easily been the final connection!!
That was under supervision in a very controlled environment too.
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I'm very careful now. When I work on my home and hobby wiring and I'm not to sure I put my left hand behind my back and make sure I'm standing on a dry surface.
In 1949 when I was 3 my mother found me sitting cross legged playing with metal knitting needles one in each hand. I had one down the - side and one down the + side of the skirting board power point. The big switch on the front had been turned off. In those days the 240v socket outlets were on the skirting boards so the cable to whatever could run along the ground. Some did not even have switches. The holes were vertical and open. Made of china.
When I was 5 some radios had enormous batteries with 60ish cells in. I used to raid the local radio shop dustbin. When I had three batteries I connected them in series and was able to light up a mains light bulb. That scared me.
My Dad then bought me an electricians starter kit. This had bulbs, holders, electric motor, bell etc. I wonder if they still make these. Hope so.
In 1949 when I was 3 my mother found me sitting cross legged playing with metal knitting needles one in each hand. I had one down the - side and one down the + side of the skirting board power point. The big switch on the front had been turned off. In those days the 240v socket outlets were on the skirting boards so the cable to whatever could run along the ground. Some did not even have switches. The holes were vertical and open. Made of china.
When I was 5 some radios had enormous batteries with 60ish cells in. I used to raid the local radio shop dustbin. When I had three batteries I connected them in series and was able to light up a mains light bulb. That scared me.
My Dad then bought me an electricians starter kit. This had bulbs, holders, electric motor, bell etc. I wonder if they still make these. Hope so.
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You are a lucky man Frank ! Where I grew up in West London, the electricity board spent a long time deep burying a huge cable linking main sub stations. Right outside the house, they put a connector. My Dad asked if there was any danger and the foreman reassured him with “only if it explodes”. It gave off enough heat to melt any snow that landed above it pretty quickly. You can still find the experiment kits, Amazon do a few.
I cannot believe you lived but you did. One break in that transformer wire or removing the transformer from the TV would have meant instant death and cremation at the same time.
There was a documentary years ago that showed a French laboratory sending a rocket up into a storm cloud with a fine copper cable attached to it. The resultant dead straight lightning bolt travelled down the copper wire earthing the storm. If I ever see that again I'll think of you.
I am reliably informed by my mother that while I was just 18 months old, she took me round to a neighbors house where I merrily played on the floor, picking things up and investigating them. One such was a type of two pin flex extender used to add length to table lamps and such. These were separable and had a socket on one side and pins on the other. Apparently I picked up the pin side and threw it down with a look of disgust. When my mum came to investigate, she found two burn marks on my hand. The pin side had been connected to the mains when it should have been on the lamp side. It was my first belt. I've had a few since and I'm sure they won't be my last but it's been a much longer time between them as I get older.
There was a documentary years ago that showed a French laboratory sending a rocket up into a storm cloud with a fine copper cable attached to it. The resultant dead straight lightning bolt travelled down the copper wire earthing the storm. If I ever see that again I'll think of you.
That sounds a bit like my childhood Frank.
I am reliably informed by my mother that while I was just 18 months old, she took me round to a neighbors house where I merrily played on the floor, picking things up and investigating them. One such was a type of two pin flex extender used to add length to table lamps and such. These were separable and had a socket on one side and pins on the other. Apparently I picked up the pin side and threw it down with a look of disgust. When my mum came to investigate, she found two burn marks on my hand. The pin side had been connected to the mains when it should have been on the lamp side. It was my first belt. I've had a few since and I'm sure they won't be my last but it's been a much longer time between them as I get older.
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SC my friend had a really badly burnt hand when he picked up a live 13 amp plug the socket having been wired to an appliance. Not much distance between those pins. It must have arced across his damp skin.
It probably won't have arced but just the proximity and damp skin would do it. I've had entry and exit burns from a faulty switch mode power supply capacitor at over 300v for a fraction of a second. I said a rude word when that happened.
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Yes "tracked" would have been a more accurate word.
I was about 5 when I got my first kick, playing with a plugged in bulb-less table lamp. Fingers in the bulb socket, it scared the sh!t outta me!
A few years ago, a workman on a railway crossing bridge here was carrying 15m reinforcement bars from one end of the bridge to the other, the bars were handed, with a bend at one end. One of them was the wrong way round, so he rotated himself on the way. Whilst half way rotated, one end of the bar started to dip (he wasn't holding it dead on centre) and the low end arc'd to the overhead catenary of the railway.
He was standing on the bridge deck, dry concrete, rubber soled work boots, and wearing thick leather work gloves.
He had extensive burns to his hands and feet which was a mess separating burned leather from burned flesh. But he survived and was lucky to do so. I guess that was 25kVA.
A few years ago, a workman on a railway crossing bridge here was carrying 15m reinforcement bars from one end of the bridge to the other, the bars were handed, with a bend at one end. One of them was the wrong way round, so he rotated himself on the way. Whilst half way rotated, one end of the bar started to dip (he wasn't holding it dead on centre) and the low end arc'd to the overhead catenary of the railway.
He was standing on the bridge deck, dry concrete, rubber soled work boots, and wearing thick leather work gloves.
He had extensive burns to his hands and feet which was a mess separating burned leather from burned flesh. But he survived and was lucky to do so. I guess that was 25kVA.
Nasty, and very lucky to survive a 25Kv shock. If he hadnt had hold of it in both hands he may well have been killed. Neither the boots nor the gloves were high voltage rated. He would have been better off in a metal suit. I always find this wierd but it is true. It amazes me when the guys work on high voltage lines from helicopters while they are switched on.
Yes, I guess its similar to the safest place in a lightning storm being sat in your car. Or better still your Land Cruiser
And no, the gloves were just industrial protection wear as with the boots. There was no intention to protect the workforce from electric shock, he or materials he was handling, should have been nowhere near live cables. As always, its those doing what they shouldn't be doing that get hit.
I could write a book of horror stories I've seen, as this thread has shown we all can, to an extent. We laugh at 'elf 'n safety, but it must have reduced work related fatalities and serious injuries no-end.
Now were in more physical danger from having such a big book thrown at us, than any injuries from any falling objects
I remember being shown a photo of a scaffolded house right next to a 33Kv substation. It was from the HSE and involved the electricity board turning off the sub as the scaffolders had got the scaffolding up without incident but the HSE weren't prepared for them to risk it taking it down.
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My late Dad was an HM factory inspector (pre HSE) for much of his working life after being in RAOC and REME during WW2. not a person many businesses enjoyed seeing at times, but probably responsible for saving many lives or bad injuries. Some of the things he came across were horrendous and down to just plain criminal negligence, others were not so clear. One very simple job that killed someone was rewiring a standard 13a plug. Just one strand of the live feed hadn’t gone into the terminal properly and a tiny bit of it was left outside the plug, hardly enough to see. One thing I remember being impressed on me was securing gas bottles after him seeing the aftermath of one toppling over and the valve being knocked off. It took off like a torpedo, through the wall of the workshop and killing someone on its way.
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