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Default Electrocution

Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck,
bad judgment or plain stupidity .
Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling
goes away.
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soup wrote

Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring
through bad luck, bad judgment or plain stupidity .


Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen


Not very often at all, essentially because you really
need the current to go from one hand across the
chest to the other to kill you most of the time.

and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position


Never.

whimpering and crying until the arm unknots


Never knots.

and the tingling feeling goes away.

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Default Lonely Obnoxious Cantankerous Auto-contradicting Senile Ozzie Troll Alert!

On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 09:44:21 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Not


LOL

Never.


LOL

Never


LOL

Sick idiot!

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On Mon, 29 Mar 2021 23:32:04 +0100, soup wrote:

Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck,
bad judgment or plain stupidity .
Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling
goes away.


I was sitting on a quarry tiled kitchen floor connecting up a cooker. My
understanding was the the supply was isolated, that quickly got revised
when I tried to strip off the insulation of a live 10mm2 feed with
uninsulated side cutters.
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Yes that would certainly do it. I am very sensitive to that electrostatic
buzz you get when you touch double insulated gear that is still live, so am
very wary. Luckily these days I do not attempt to wire up mains gear as I
cannot see the colours of wires any more.
As an aside there are a couple of forms of shock you do not want, unless you
have masochistic tendencies.1. On some navel ships the supply is 440 volts
at 300Hz.

No matter where you catch that kind of shock it bleedin well hurts and
often you seemingly cannot let go. To be avoided at all costs.
2 RF burning. When I was still young I got a burn across my palm from a ham
radio aerial in my garden. . It first started to feel like an itch then
pure pain, I let go very quick but not fast enough to stop a burn that took
some weeks to heal properly. So effectively microwaving your palm is not
advisable!

People get shocks all the time of course, but mostly its what we call
static, caused by the imbalance of ions plus and negative that can occur
merely with friction between materials, whether they be clothing carpets
seating or for air rushing down a vacuum cleaner pipe. I did when I was
younger 'borrow' a high impedance voltage probe and some people could get
charged up with over 20,000 volts in just a few seconds. Luckily its got no
current behind it on discharge so the worst you get is a crack a spark, and
a tiny pin point burn on your finger.
Talking of real life sad cases though, the daughter of an MP had just had a
new kitchen fitted and was trying to get something out of a cupboard and
touched a securing screw with one hand while steadying herself on the
washing machine with the other. She was killed instantly and the kitchen
fitter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He had basically joined a
number of wires up inside a wall cavity, and not filled in the hole merely
screwed the cabinet over the top, One of the screws in the back had just
caught a live wire and was thus live and the washing machine was earthed.
The report did not go into too many details, but apparently she was alone
her heart stopped and she fell off her kickstep and hit her head on some
appliance.

Brian



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"jon" wrote in message ...
On Mon, 29 Mar 2021 23:32:04 +0100, soup wrote:

Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck,
bad judgment or plain stupidity .
Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling
goes away.


I was sitting on a quarry tiled kitchen floor connecting up a cooker. My
understanding was the the supply was isolated, that quickly got revised
when I tried to strip off the insulation of a live 10mm2 feed with
uninsulated side cutters.





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On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 08:39:22 +0100, Brian Gaff \(Sofa\) wrote:

Yes that would certainly do it. I am very sensitive to that
electrostatic buzz you get when you touch double insulated gear that is
still live, so am very wary. Luckily these days I do not attempt to wire
up mains gear as I cannot see the colours of wires any more.
As an aside there are a couple of forms of shock you do not want, unless
you have masochistic tendencies.1. On some navel ships the supply is 440
volts at 300Hz.

No matter where you catch that kind of shock it bleedin well hurts and
often you seemingly cannot let go. To be avoided at all costs.
2 RF burning. When I was still young I got a burn across my palm from a
ham
radio aerial in my garden. . It first started to feel like an itch then
pure pain, I let go very quick but not fast enough to stop a burn that
took some weeks to heal properly. So effectively microwaving your palm
is not advisable!

People get shocks all the time of course, but mostly its what we call
static, caused by the imbalance of ions plus and negative that can occur
merely with friction between materials, whether they be clothing carpets
seating or for air rushing down a vacuum cleaner pipe. I did when I was
younger 'borrow' a high impedance voltage probe and some people could
get charged up with over 20,000 volts in just a few seconds. Luckily its
got no current behind it on discharge so the worst you get is a crack a
spark, and a tiny pin point burn on your finger.
Talking of real life sad cases though, the daughter of an MP had just
had a
new kitchen fitted and was trying to get something out of a cupboard
and touched a securing screw with one hand while steadying herself on
the washing machine with the other. She was killed instantly and the
kitchen fitter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He had
basically joined a number of wires up inside a wall cavity, and not
filled in the hole merely screwed the cabinet over the top, One of the
screws in the back had just caught a live wire and was thus live and the
washing machine was earthed. The report did not go into too many
details, but apparently she was alone her heart stopped and she fell off
her kickstep and hit her head on some appliance.

Brian


At International Aeradio Ltd., there was a guy who had hundreds of RF
burns to his head where he had gone into transmitting cages to adjust
something over the years.
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Yes well I can believe that as well. I visited Brookman's Park back in 1961,
and unlike today, the only thing between us and the high voltages and rf was
a line of stands with a ribbon stretched between them, we were actively
encouraged to use a small neon lamp with a coil attached and see if we
could get it to light, Of course we did, I was 11 at the time. We were told
to keep clear of the transmission lines that ran on about 1M stands from
transmitter building to a small brick building at the base of each aerial
and were allowed to go inside the building of one not in use at the moment
to see the huge coil and clamp of the matching system.
There are people who still live nearby to large transmitters who can hear
the program on such diverse things as the chains on mirrors and their
cookers, Also keeping the rf out of telephones etc is not easy at those
field strengths.
Brian

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"jon" wrote in message ...
On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 08:39:22 +0100, Brian Gaff \(Sofa\) wrote:

Yes that would certainly do it. I am very sensitive to that
electrostatic buzz you get when you touch double insulated gear that is
still live, so am very wary. Luckily these days I do not attempt to wire
up mains gear as I cannot see the colours of wires any more.
As an aside there are a couple of forms of shock you do not want, unless
you have masochistic tendencies.1. On some navel ships the supply is 440
volts at 300Hz.

No matter where you catch that kind of shock it bleedin well hurts and
often you seemingly cannot let go. To be avoided at all costs.
2 RF burning. When I was still young I got a burn across my palm from a
ham
radio aerial in my garden. . It first started to feel like an itch then
pure pain, I let go very quick but not fast enough to stop a burn that
took some weeks to heal properly. So effectively microwaving your palm
is not advisable!

People get shocks all the time of course, but mostly its what we call
static, caused by the imbalance of ions plus and negative that can occur
merely with friction between materials, whether they be clothing carpets
seating or for air rushing down a vacuum cleaner pipe. I did when I was
younger 'borrow' a high impedance voltage probe and some people could
get charged up with over 20,000 volts in just a few seconds. Luckily its
got no current behind it on discharge so the worst you get is a crack a
spark, and a tiny pin point burn on your finger.
Talking of real life sad cases though, the daughter of an MP had just
had a
new kitchen fitted and was trying to get something out of a cupboard
and touched a securing screw with one hand while steadying herself on
the washing machine with the other. She was killed instantly and the
kitchen fitter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He had
basically joined a number of wires up inside a wall cavity, and not
filled in the hole merely screwed the cabinet over the top, One of the
screws in the back had just caught a live wire and was thus live and the
washing machine was earthed. The report did not go into too many
details, but apparently she was alone her heart stopped and she fell off
her kickstep and hit her head on some appliance.

Brian


At International Aeradio Ltd., there was a guy who had hundreds of RF
burns to his head where he had gone into transmitting cages to adjust
something over the years.



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"Brian Gaff (Sofa)" wrote in message
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Yes that would certainly do it. I am very sensitive to that electrostatic
Talking of real life sad cases though, the daughter of an MP had just had
a new kitchen fitted and was trying to get something out of a cupboard
and touched a securing screw with one hand while steadying herself on the
washing machine with the other. She was killed instantly and the kitchen
fitter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He had basically joined
a number of wires up inside a wall cavity, and not filled in the hole
merely screwed the cabinet over the top, One of the screws in the back had
just caught a live wire and was thus live and the washing machine was
earthed. The report did not go into too many details, but apparently she
was alone her heart stopped and she fell off her kickstep and hit her head
on some appliance.


That's nasty. And such a stupid mistake for the electrician to make.

Earthed appliances can be more trouble that they are worth if you happen to
touch an appliance that is live.

I got a nasty jolt when I unplugged a TV aerial cable from a USB DVB tuner
connected to my PC. I had the metal aerial plug in one hand and was holding
the earthed case of the PC with the other hand. As soon as the plug was no
longer in contact with the earthed PC, I got about 100 V across me. Probably
very low current, but it was enough to hurt for a few minutes afterwards.
Another leg of the TV aerial was plugged into my TV (which was off but
plugged in) and from there audio and SCART cables went to a VCR, an
OnDigital box and my hifi. One of those was evidently to blame. Having
disconnected everything in turn, with a voltmeter across the aerial plug and
mains earth, I narrowed it down to the TV. It was putting out about 300 V as
measured with a high-resistance voltmeter which went down to about 100 V
when I put a human-sized resistor (I measured my across-the-chest resistance
as about 200 K ohms) in parallel to simulate me touching aerial and earth.
So there was a large internal resistance, but not large enough to prevent a
noticeable jolt.

After that I rigged up a wire from mains earth to the aerial amplifier's
screen connection, to make sure everything was earthed. All it needed was
one earthed appliance (the PC) and everything was OK, which is why I'd never
noticed the problem before, but as soon as that earthed connection was
removed, everything was "semi-live". Sod's Law: everything else was
double-insulated and so not earthed. Probably to avoid hum loops as much as
to avoid needing a three-pin mains lead.


I've only had a "proper" mains shock twice in my life. Once when I made the
elementary mistake of working on a tape recorder that was turned off (so
everything downstream of the mains switch was safe), forgetting that the
input terminals to the switch were live... This was in the old days of a
fuse box that only contained (wire) fuses, with no earth-leakage RCD. I
still have two marks on my finger where it touched the soldered switch pins
for the live and neutral feed: it looks like a snake bite ;-)


The second time was equally silly. I was changing a lot of GU10 light
fittings which had Philips Hue bulbs in them - the type of bulb is
important, because these can be turned off with the mains still live (there
is a switch inside the bulb which is controlled by a phone app). Each time I
did a few more fittings, I turned off the wall switch and also the circuit
breaker for the lighting circuit. Except for one set, when I made the stupid
mistake of thinking that the bulbs were not lit, therefore the power was off
at least at the wall switch. Wrong! On that occasion the house was protected
with an RCD, which did its job and tripped very quickly: I know that because
it also killed the table lamp that I was using for illumination while the
ceiling lights were supposedly off.

The second shock was much less sever that the first one, probably because of
the RCD, so I didn't have to pull my hand away.

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Yes well, the bodger who fitted the kitchen was not an electrician, it
turned out just a kitchen fitter trying to save time and extra money in that
out of sight out of mind way some people have.
The older TVs of course had the chassis at half mains voltage and the
aerial socket was supposed to contain isolating capacitors, but even those
can get charged up to high voltages and also you can get leaky capacitors
after some time and this practice luckily has now almost stopped, in favour
of the switch mode psu which is then supposedly isolated by its much
smaller transformer working at the higher frequencies. Having said that I
have seen cheap Chinese wall warts actually come apart when you try to pull
them out of a socket leaving live ends of the mains pins bare inside. Not a
good design.
Brian

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"NY" wrote in message
...
"Brian Gaff (Sofa)" wrote in message
...
Yes that would certainly do it. I am very sensitive to that
electrostatic Talking of real life sad cases though, the daughter of an
MP had just had a new kitchen fitted and was trying to get something out
of a cupboard and touched a securing screw with one hand while steadying
herself on the washing machine with the other. She was killed instantly
and the kitchen fitter was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. He had
basically joined a number of wires up inside a wall cavity, and not
filled in the hole merely screwed the cabinet over the top, One of the
screws in the back had just caught a live wire and was thus live and the
washing machine was earthed. The report did not go into too many details,
but apparently she was alone her heart stopped and she fell off her
kickstep and hit her head on some appliance.


That's nasty. And such a stupid mistake for the electrician to make.

Earthed appliances can be more trouble that they are worth if you happen
to touch an appliance that is live.

I got a nasty jolt when I unplugged a TV aerial cable from a USB DVB tuner
connected to my PC. I had the metal aerial plug in one hand and was
holding the earthed case of the PC with the other hand. As soon as the
plug was no longer in contact with the earthed PC, I got about 100 V
across me. Probably very low current, but it was enough to hurt for a few
minutes afterwards. Another leg of the TV aerial was plugged into my TV
(which was off but plugged in) and from there audio and SCART cables went
to a VCR, an OnDigital box and my hifi. One of those was evidently to
blame. Having disconnected everything in turn, with a voltmeter across the
aerial plug and mains earth, I narrowed it down to the TV. It was putting
out about 300 V as measured with a high-resistance voltmeter which went
down to about 100 V when I put a human-sized resistor (I measured my
across-the-chest resistance as about 200 K ohms) in parallel to simulate
me touching aerial and earth. So there was a large internal resistance,
but not large enough to prevent a noticeable jolt.

After that I rigged up a wire from mains earth to the aerial amplifier's
screen connection, to make sure everything was earthed. All it needed was
one earthed appliance (the PC) and everything was OK, which is why I'd
never noticed the problem before, but as soon as that earthed connection
was removed, everything was "semi-live". Sod's Law: everything else was
double-insulated and so not earthed. Probably to avoid hum loops as much
as to avoid needing a three-pin mains lead.


I've only had a "proper" mains shock twice in my life. Once when I made
the elementary mistake of working on a tape recorder that was turned off
(so everything downstream of the mains switch was safe), forgetting that
the input terminals to the switch were live... This was in the old days of
a fuse box that only contained (wire) fuses, with no earth-leakage RCD. I
still have two marks on my finger where it touched the soldered switch
pins for the live and neutral feed: it looks like a snake bite ;-)


The second time was equally silly. I was changing a lot of GU10 light
fittings which had Philips Hue bulbs in them - the type of bulb is
important, because these can be turned off with the mains still live
(there is a switch inside the bulb which is controlled by a phone app).
Each time I did a few more fittings, I turned off the wall switch and also
the circuit breaker for the lighting circuit. Except for one set, when I
made the stupid mistake of thinking that the bulbs were not lit, therefore
the power was off at least at the wall switch. Wrong! On that occasion the
house was protected with an RCD, which did its job and tripped very
quickly: I know that because it also killed the table lamp that I was
using for illumination while the ceiling lights were supposedly off.

The second shock was much less sever that the first one, probably because
of the RCD, so I didn't have to pull my hand away.



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"Brian Gaff (Sofa)" wrote in message
...
The older TVs of course had the chassis at half mains voltage and the
aerial socket was supposed to contain isolating capacitors, but even those
can get charged up to high voltages and also you can get leaky capacitors
after some time and this practice luckily has now almost stopped, in
favour of the switch mode psu which is then supposedly isolated by its
much smaller transformer working at the higher frequencies.


This was a Panasonic CRT TV, bought in 2000. It was widescreen, so probably
a fairly recent model as digital TV was only just about to be introduced.


I suppose the presence of live chassis in very old televisions was the
reason for the insulated aerial plugs that you used to see on TV aerial
leads. ;-)



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On 30/03/2021 05:18, jon wrote:
On Mon, 29 Mar 2021 23:32:04 +0100, soup wrote:

Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck,
bad judgment or plain stupidity .
Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling
goes away.


I was sitting on a quarry tiled kitchen floor connecting up a cooker. My
understanding was the the supply was isolated, that quickly got revised
when I tried to strip off the insulation of a live 10mm2 feed with
uninsulated side cutters.

Last time it happened to me I was sitting on te floor trying to work out
why a brand new desk lamp didn't work. I had been through several cycles
of 'switch off at the wall, take apart, change rebuild, switch on at the
wall, test. and at one point I must have forgotten the 'switch off at wall'

I think it was hand to hand but one wasn't grasping anything just touching


--
"And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch".

Gospel of St. Mathew 15:14

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One popular one is the ceiling rose syndrome. There is no point in turning
off the light if you discover you need either a new block in the ceiling or
a new bit of pendant wire as we all know there is an unswitched live up
there in that rose and a screwdriver in the wrong hole while up a ladder can
be a very unpleasant surprise, I always after my first encounter with this
situation tripped the cut out on the circuit first.

Brian

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"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 30/03/2021 05:18, jon wrote:
On Mon, 29 Mar 2021 23:32:04 +0100, soup wrote:

Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck,
bad judgment or plain stupidity .
Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually
happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling
goes away.


I was sitting on a quarry tiled kitchen floor connecting up a cooker. My
understanding was the the supply was isolated, that quickly got revised
when I tried to strip off the insulation of a live 10mm2 feed with
uninsulated side cutters.

Last time it happened to me I was sitting on te floor trying to work out
why a brand new desk lamp didn't work. I had been through several cycles
of 'switch off at the wall, take apart, change rebuild, switch on at the
wall, test. and at one point I must have forgotten the 'switch off at
wall'

I think it was hand to hand but one wasn't grasping anything just touching


--
"And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch".

Gospel of St. Mathew 15:14



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Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly small
current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your heart, that is
why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were usually thru the fingers of the same
hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had series fed
heaters across the mains.
Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised feeling
soon passes.

Remember in the past some dodgy practitioners thought shocks were actually
therapeutic, How they did not manage to kill most of their patients is
amazing. I'm also sure as kids we all made electric shock machines All you
needed was a small mains transformer a battery and something like a
mechanical buzzer. You wired the buzzer and secondary in series with the
battery and a switch, and asked your victim to hold the ends of the
primary.
I guess current was quite low, but when bridge rectifiers and small high
voltage capacitors came along you could end up with something really
dangerous. What we used to do was charge up a capacitor and leave it on a
young ladies seat and watch what happened when she picked it up, Ahem, Well
it was fun at the time...
Brian

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"soup" wrote in message
...
Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck, bad
judgment or plain stupidity .
Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling goes
away.



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On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 08:04:22 +0100, Brian Gaff \(Sofa\) wrote:

Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your
heart, that is why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were usually thru the fingers of the
same
hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had series
fed heaters across the mains.
Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised
feeling
soon passes.

Remember in the past some dodgy practitioners thought shocks were
actually therapeutic, How they did not manage to kill most of their
patients is amazing. I'm also sure as kids we all made electric shock
machines All you needed was a small mains transformer a battery and
something like a mechanical buzzer. You wired the buzzer and secondary
in series with the battery and a switch, and asked your victim to hold
the ends of the primary.
I guess current was quite low, but when bridge rectifiers and small
high
voltage capacitors came along you could end up with something really
dangerous. What we used to do was charge up a capacitor and leave it on
a young ladies seat and watch what happened when she picked it up, Ahem,
Well it was fun at the time...
Brian


The radio room at Lyons where I did my apprenticeship had two door handles
that had to be operated simultaneously to gain entry.
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Erm well are you suggesting bridging them with a charged up hv capacitor?
Not nice, and probably dangerous, at least the ladies only picked them up in
one hand then very quickly dropped them and swore.
Brian

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"jon" wrote in message ...
On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 08:04:22 +0100, Brian Gaff \(Sofa\) wrote:

Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your
heart, that is why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were usually thru the fingers of the
same
hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had series
fed heaters across the mains.
Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised
feeling
soon passes.

Remember in the past some dodgy practitioners thought shocks were
actually therapeutic, How they did not manage to kill most of their
patients is amazing. I'm also sure as kids we all made electric shock
machines All you needed was a small mains transformer a battery and
something like a mechanical buzzer. You wired the buzzer and secondary
in series with the battery and a switch, and asked your victim to hold
the ends of the primary.
I guess current was quite low, but when bridge rectifiers and small
high
voltage capacitors came along you could end up with something really
dangerous. What we used to do was charge up a capacitor and leave it on
a young ladies seat and watch what happened when she picked it up, Ahem,
Well it was fun at the time...
Brian


The radio room at Lyons where I did my apprenticeship had two door handles
that had to be operated simultaneously to gain entry.





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Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote

Erm well are you suggesting bridging them with a charged up hv capacitor?
Not nice, and probably dangerous, at least the ladies only picked them up
in one hand then very quickly dropped them and swore.


Real ladies never swear. If they do they get de tiared, rather like being
defrocked.

"jon" wrote in message ...
On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 08:04:22 +0100, Brian Gaff \(Sofa\) wrote:

Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your
heart, that is why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were usually thru the fingers of the
same
hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had series
fed heaters across the mains.
Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised
feeling
soon passes.

Remember in the past some dodgy practitioners thought shocks were
actually therapeutic, How they did not manage to kill most of their
patients is amazing. I'm also sure as kids we all made electric shock
machines All you needed was a small mains transformer a battery and
something like a mechanical buzzer. You wired the buzzer and secondary
in series with the battery and a switch, and asked your victim to hold
the ends of the primary.
I guess current was quite low, but when bridge rectifiers and small
high
voltage capacitors came along you could end up with something really
dangerous. What we used to do was charge up a capacitor and leave it on
a young ladies seat and watch what happened when she picked it up, Ahem,
Well it was fun at the time...
Brian


The radio room at Lyons where I did my apprenticeship had two door
handles
that had to be operated simultaneously to gain entry.



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On Wed, 31 Mar 2021 06:01:39 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote

Erm well are you suggesting bridging them with a charged up hv capacitor?
Not nice, and probably dangerous, at least the ladies only picked them up
in one hand then very quickly dropped them and swore.


Real ladies never swear.


They only swear when it slips out.

If they do they get de tiared, rather like being
defrocked.

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Brian Gaff (Sofa) laid this down on his screen :
Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly small
current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your heart, that is
why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.


Across the chest is the worst possible type of shock, almost as bad is
from the hand and down through the body to the wet feet.

They do still use a type of electric shock machine. They sometimes call
them 'TENS' commonly available with a type sold on TV ads. (Think
cricketer). Idea is the controlled electric shocks, trigger local
muscles, which also helps stimulate circulation and maybe use up fat in
the body.
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On 30/03/2021 09:47, Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Brian Gaff (Sofa) laid this down on his screen :
Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your
heart, that is why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.


Across the chest is the worst possible type of shock, almost as bad is
from the hand and down through the body to the wet feet.

They do still use a type of electric shock machine. They sometimes call
them 'TENS' commonly available with a type sold on TV ads. (Think
cricketer). Idea is the controlled electric shocks, trigger local
muscles, which also helps stimulate circulation and maybe use up fat in
the body.


I think that is on the low frequency setting (around 3 Hz, but variable
on many) - pulses that cause the muscles to contract. On the high
frequency setting (150Hz), the muscles don't have time to react, but the
nerves become numbed, relieving pain.


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On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 09:47:36 +0100, Harry Bloomfield, Esq. wrote:

They do still use a type of electric shock machine. They sometimes call
them 'TENS' commonly available with a type sold on TV ads. (Think
cricketer). Idea is the controlled electric shocks, trigger local
muscles,
which also helps stimulate circulation and maybe use up fat in the body.


TENS was really produced for blocking nerves with a high freqenecy signal.

However, mine is adjustable to very low frequencies, and I use mine at
fairly high intensity, at 2Hz, to cause a tight muscle to flex
repeatedly. I was put on it by a nurse at the pain clinic, and it's
pretty well fixed the problem after doctors gave up (following X-ray and
MRI...)


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Another thing which strangely seem to help is the good old tesla coil,
often sold as the violet wand etc, though I'm not sure if all that ozone is
good for you, it does if stroked across ones skin seem to reduce pain, but
its all a bit over the top and showy, and probably could be done much easier
with a more targeted approach and les in your face pomp so to speak.
Brian

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"Bob Eager" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 09:47:36 +0100, Harry Bloomfield, Esq. wrote:

They do still use a type of electric shock machine. They sometimes call
them 'TENS' commonly available with a type sold on TV ads. (Think
cricketer). Idea is the controlled electric shocks, trigger local
muscles,
which also helps stimulate circulation and maybe use up fat in the body.


TENS was really produced for blocking nerves with a high freqenecy signal.

However, mine is adjustable to very low frequencies, and I use mine at
fairly high intensity, at 2Hz, to cause a tight muscle to flex
repeatedly. I was put on it by a nurse at the pain clinic, and it's
pretty well fixed the problem after doctors gave up (following X-ray and
MRI...)


--
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wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
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Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote

I don't hink you would be working on cars in bare feet though would you?


Lots of us do in summer.

"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 09:47:36 +0100, Harry Bloomfield, Esq. wrote:

Brian Gaff (Sofa) laid this down on his screen :
Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your
heart, that is why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.

Across the chest is the worst possible type of shock, almost as bad is
from the hand and down through the body to the wet feet.


Which is almost impossible to avoid in cars ... one hand on the chassis,
the other poking around near the HT leads ...





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Electrocution isn't always a dodgy therapy. The NHS still use
electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for severe depression if there's no
other practicable option.


On 30/03/2021 08:04, Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote:
Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly small
current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your heart, that is
why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were usually thru the fingers of the same
hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had series fed
heaters across the mains.
Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised feeling
soon passes.

Remember in the past some dodgy practitioners thought shocks were actually
therapeutic, How they did not manage to kill most of their patients is
amazing. I'm also sure as kids we all made electric shock machines All you
needed was a small mains transformer a battery and something like a
mechanical buzzer. You wired the buzzer and secondary in series with the
battery and a switch, and asked your victim to hold the ends of the
primary.
I guess current was quite low, but when bridge rectifiers and small high
voltage capacitors came along you could end up with something really
dangerous. What we used to do was charge up a capacitor and leave it on a
young ladies seat and watch what happened when she picked it up, Ahem, Well
it was fun at the time...
Brian



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Yes they do, but its only at the discretion of the person as its by no means
pain free. Not that I've tried it, but know somebody who had it once..
Brian

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"Robin" wrote in message
...
Electrocution isn't always a dodgy therapy. The NHS still use
electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for severe depression if there's no other
practicable option.


On 30/03/2021 08:04, Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote:
Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small
current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your heart, that
is
why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were usually thru the fingers of the
same
hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had series
fed
heaters across the mains.
Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised
feeling
soon passes.

Remember in the past some dodgy practitioners thought shocks were
actually
therapeutic, How they did not manage to kill most of their patients is
amazing. I'm also sure as kids we all made electric shock machines All
you
needed was a small mains transformer a battery and something like a
mechanical buzzer. You wired the buzzer and secondary in series with the
battery and a switch, and asked your victim to hold the ends of the
primary.
I guess current was quite low, but when bridge rectifiers and small
high
voltage capacitors came along you could end up with something really
dangerous. What we used to do was charge up a capacitor and leave it on a
young ladies seat and watch what happened when she picked it up, Ahem,
Well
it was fun at the time...
Brian



--
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reply-to address is (intended to be) valid



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Robin wrote

Electrocution isn't always a dodgy therapy. The NHS still use
electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for severe depression if there's no other
practicable option.


And some of the yanks still use the electric chair
as a very effective therapy for the worst murderers.

They never do another.


Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote
Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small
current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your heart, that
is
why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were usually thru the fingers of the
same
hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had series
fed
heaters across the mains.
Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised
feeling
soon passes.

Remember in the past some dodgy practitioners thought shocks were
actually
therapeutic, How they did not manage to kill most of their patients is
amazing. I'm also sure as kids we all made electric shock machines All
you
needed was a small mains transformer a battery and something like a
mechanical buzzer. You wired the buzzer and secondary in series with the
battery and a switch, and asked your victim to hold the ends of the
primary.
I guess current was quite low, but when bridge rectifiers and small
high
voltage capacitors came along you could end up with something really
dangerous. What we used to do was charge up a capacitor and leave it on a
young ladies seat and watch what happened when she picked it up, Ahem,
Well
it was fun at the time...
Brian



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"Brian Gaff (Sofa)" wrote in message
...
Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your heart,
that is why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were usually thru the fingers of the
same hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had
series fed heaters across the mains.


Ah, the perils of series-fed Christmas tree lights or valve heaters. When
all are working, you get the regulation 6 V across each one, but if one
fails and you remove it, there is near-enough the full mains voltage at the
socket (since the body resistance is so much greater than the filament
resistances).

Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised feeling
soon passes.


With my two mains shocks it took about 48 hours before the residual tingling
had gone.

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On 30/03/2021 13:00, NY wrote:
"Brian Gaff (Sofa)" wrote in message
...
Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your
heart, that is why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were* usually thru the fingers of the
same hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had
series fed heaters across the mains.


Ah, the perils of series-fed Christmas tree lights or valve heaters.
When all are working, you get the regulation 6 V across each one, but if
one fails and you remove it, there is near-enough the full mains voltage
at the socket (since the body resistance is so much greater than the
filament resistances).


There used to be a toy museum in Cockermouth. In one cabinet was an
early, electric, model railway. That had a controller that plugged into
a light fitting, with the removed bulb plugged into the top of the
controller, which had a rheostat. As soon as the train derailed, the
tracks would have no load and go to 240V!

Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised
feeling soon passes.


With my two mains shocks it took about 48 hours before the residual
tingling had gone.


I too got one off a tape recorder - my fault, I did not expect them to
use 240V directly to power the erase head!

I've had a couple from accidentally contacting something that needed to
stay live, while working on something else in the same enclosure. Only
the tape recorder one was a proper belt, leaving me with a painful, but
numb and unresponsive arm, but only for a few minutes.

These days I've obviously improved, so none for quite a few years -
except for my boiler supply/switching, which floats at about 90V when I
disconnect both live and neutral at the supply end of the cable. There
are no other connections to either cable and boiler, so it must be an
induced voltage from parallel cabling.

Now we also have RCBOs on the non-lighting circuits and will be adding
them to the lighting soon.
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I'm always wary of so called safety devices that rely on electronics. That
is why I used to pull out the breaker on that circuit completely. OK some
bodger might have routed a live from a different ring, but very unlikely.

Brian

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"Steve Walker" wrote in message
...
On 30/03/2021 13:00, NY wrote:
"Brian Gaff (Sofa)" wrote in message
...
Well the key is where you take the shock. It only takes a surprisingly
small current across the chest to kill you merely by stopping your
heart, that is why the one hand in your pocket advice is so useful.
Lots of us have had shocks, mine were usually thru the fingers of the
same hand when delving inside a working piece of valve gear that had
series fed heaters across the mains.


Ah, the perils of series-fed Christmas tree lights or valve heaters. When
all are working, you get the regulation 6 V across each one, but if one
fails and you remove it, there is near-enough the full mains voltage at
the socket (since the body resistance is so much greater than the
filament resistances).


There used to be a toy museum in Cockermouth. In one cabinet was an early,
electric, model railway. That had a controller that plugged into a light
fitting, with the removed bulb plugged into the top of the controller,
which had a rheostat. As soon as the train derailed, the tracks would have
no load and go to 240V!

Yes you get some expletives but not much else. The buzzing bruised
feeling soon passes.


With my two mains shocks it took about 48 hours before the residual
tingling had gone.


I too got one off a tape recorder - my fault, I did not expect them to use
240V directly to power the erase head!

I've had a couple from accidentally contacting something that needed to
stay live, while working on something else in the same enclosure. Only the
tape recorder one was a proper belt, leaving me with a painful, but numb
and unresponsive arm, but only for a few minutes.

These days I've obviously improved, so none for quite a few years - except
for my boiler supply/switching, which floats at about 90V when I
disconnect both live and neutral at the supply end of the cable. There are
no other connections to either cable and boiler, so it must be an induced
voltage from parallel cabling.

Now we also have RCBOs on the non-lighting circuits and will be adding
them to the lighting soon.



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In article , Brian Gaff \(Sofa\)
wrote:
I'm always wary of so called safety devices that rely on electronics.
That is why I used to pull out the breaker on that circuit completely.
OK some bodger might have routed a live from a different ring, but very
unlikely.


Brian


we had a teacher at school whose hair was completely white. He'd been
working on a circuit from which he'd removed the fuse. Someone passing saw
the fuse on the side and re-inserted it.
Moral - put the fuse in your pocket.

--
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"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 16:34:17 +0100, Brian Gaff \(Sofa\) wrote:

I'm always wary of so called safety devices that rely on electronics.
That is why I used to pull out the breaker on that circuit completely.
OK some bodger might have routed a live from a different ring, but very
unlikely.


Electrician we had in to *quickly* do a fix in order to allow me to
decorate made a point of taking the fuse out of the fusebox and putting
it in his pocket.

He was in his 50s and said as an apprentice, someone he worked with
removed a fuse to work on a circuit in a factory or warehouse. Sadly
someone came along, saw the open fusebox and removed fuse and put it back
and closed it.


My mum had a friend who had a son a few years younger than me. When Mark was
about three, he happened to be passing the fuse box in the under-stairs
cupboard and "helpfully" turned on the main switch that the electrician had
turned off while he was working on a circuit. The electrician (who lived at
the house which backed onto ours) survived unscathed, but he was not best
pleased!

As an aside, mum's friend used to complain that if I was left alone at her
house when I was little, I'd get up to mischief - pouring salt into the
sugar bowl, screwing up (literally!) the tension on her sewing machine,
spilling her perfume on the dressing table taking the varnish off the wood,
etc. Then when her son got to the age I'd been, *he* started with pranks - I
know he put a stick in her twin-tub washing machine, jammed the paddle and
therefore the motor and caused smoke to come out of the machine; and there
were many other things. So she had to admit that it was not just me but
"all" boys who got into mischief at that age. The one that took longest to
diagnose and fix was probably a genuine accident: he was playing in their
car and accidentally dislodged a wire under the dashboard with his foot
(though no-one knew that at the time), causing half the electrics to fail -
not irreparably, but until the wire was found where a plug and socket had
been pulled apart.

Now tell me that girls *never* do that, ever ;-)



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On 29/03/2021 23:32, soup wrote:
Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck,
bad judgment or plain stupidity .
Â* Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling
goes away.


Been there done that - once!
When I was about 8 years old I had a crystal set and thought I needed a
longer aerial on it to get better reception. Had seen pylons with wires
on them supplying electricity so thought that would be a lovely aerial!.
Went to mains socket in bedroom with metal meccano screwdiver in one
hand, bare wire to plug into socket in other. Pushed down the earth
shutter with screwdriver and inserted bare wire into now open shuttered
pin. I now know the difference between live and neutral! Seriously
thought I was going to die. Been extreemly cautious ever since and never
had another belt from the mains!
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I do hope the Spanish have improved their plugs and sockets as I got a belt
from a bedside light in the Canary Isles in a chalet. There were two errors.
The 2 pin connectors into the wall used a kind of poke in a hole and screw
the pin in over the wire connection system leaving strands of wire poking
out round the dodgy, and the not long enough cable from the light had been
twisted together to another cable to reach the plug and wrapped in
insulating tape. So I follow the wire down, first get a tingle from the
wire sticking through the tape and then get to the plug and get a belt from
the bits of bare wire round the not very well fitting pin of the plug.
I had quite a few words with the building manager and wondered if the
intention was to kill his residents off. He said guests were not supposed
to touch wiring, Well, like what kind of excuse is that.
I also remember a lift in an apartment building where we went to collect
some photos having a broken emergency cut switch which had been wedged on
with a bit of old plastic tubing and some duct tape, so goodness knows how
you were supposed to stop the lift if it went wrong!
Brian

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"Andy Bennet" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 29/03/2021 23:32, soup wrote:
Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck, bad
judgment or plain stupidity .
Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling goes
away.


Been there done that - once!
When I was about 8 years old I had a crystal set and thought I needed a
longer aerial on it to get better reception. Had seen pylons with wires on
them supplying electricity so thought that would be a lovely aerial!. Went
to mains socket in bedroom with metal meccano screwdiver in one hand, bare
wire to plug into socket in other. Pushed down the earth shutter with
screwdriver and inserted bare wire into now open shuttered pin. I now know
the difference between live and neutral! Seriously thought I was going to
die. Been extreemly cautious ever since and never had another belt from
the mains!



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On Tuesday, 30 March 2021 at 09:02:48 UTC+1, Andy Bennet wrote:
On 29/03/2021 23:32, soup wrote:
Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck,
bad judgment or plain stupidity .
Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling
goes away.

Been there done that - once!
When I was about 8 years old I had a crystal set and thought I needed a
longer aerial on it to get better reception. Had seen pylons with wires
on them supplying electricity so thought that would be a lovely aerial!.
Went to mains socket in bedroom with metal meccano screwdiver in one
hand, bare wire to plug into socket in other. Pushed down the earth
shutter with screwdriver and inserted bare wire into now open shuttered
pin. I now know the difference between live and neutral! Seriously
thought I was going to die. Been extreemly cautious ever since and never
had another belt from the mains!



And I thought it was just me. At a similar age - maybe 10 - I decided to make an electric car. I knew motors had windings. That was all I knew. I wound a wire around the metal axle of a lego car, and attached both ends to a battery. Strangely, nothing happened.

OBVIOUSLY I needed more oomph. I opened up a plug. Observing that there were three terminals, I decided to splice the wire into all three to see what would happen. I then made the only good decision I made that day. Instead of plugging in to the switched on socket, I elected to switch it off, plug in, and THEN switch on. Just as well, it blew the thing off the wall and blew the fuse at the board. I saw a flash but avoided any shock, which was more than could be said for my parents.

I also remember that when the electrician came round to fix it, I ended up with a double in my room where I had previously had a single. So that was a win.


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Default Electrocution

You might have been very well hydrated so the current went through the
water!

Brian

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"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
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On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 09:02:44 +0100, Andy Bennet wrote:

On 29/03/2021 23:32, soup wrote:
Many have had a 'belt' from domestic 240Volt wiring through bad luck,
bad judgment or plain stupidity .
Whilst a shock from 240V CAN kill how often does that actually happen
and how many just get thrown across the room into a foetal position
whimpering and crying until the arm unknots and the tingling feeling
goes away.


Been there done that - once!
When I was about 8 years old I had a crystal set and thought I needed a
longer aerial on it to get better reception. Had seen pylons with wires
on them supplying electricity so thought that would be a lovely aerial!.
Went to mains socket in bedroom with metal meccano screwdiver in one
hand, bare wire to plug into socket in other. Pushed down the earth
shutter with screwdriver and inserted bare wire into now open shuttered
pin. I now know the difference between live and neutral! Seriously
thought I was going to die. Been extreemly cautious ever since and never
had another belt from the mains!


I had a not dissimilar experience. I'd been given a mains radio, one
where the DC was obtained simply by directly rectifying the incoming
mains with no isolation, i.e. chassis connected to neutral etc.
Unbeknown to me, the previous owner had managed to reverse the live
and neutral wires in the plug, which meant the chassis was always
live. I was aware from crystal set experience that an 'earth' was a
'good thing', so I attached a wire to the chassis and dangled it out
of the bedroom window. Downstairs and outside, the plan was to attach
it to the rising water main. But I couldn't quite reach the dangling
wire without stretching up with one hand and holding onto said rising
main with the other hand for support. OUCH! I suppose I was lucky,
because that was the classic situation for electrocution, from one
hand to the other right across the heart. Being off-balance at the
time did mean immediate disconnection as I dropped down, which
probably saved me.

--

Chris





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