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Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 3:00 pm
by nachtjaeger
To put this one in layman's terms, one of the light switches in your house quit working. You don't have a spare, so you decide to take the parts from inside a working switch elsewhere in the house and replace it. You shut off the switch, test the wires coming out, and they're dead. So now, you start taking
the switch itself apart to get at the innards. Did you shut off the power going INTO the switch? No. So when you take the piece out of the switch, the contacts fall closed, and when you reach back inside. . . Oops.
https://youtu.be/yXU0jiBQfG0
Re: Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 3:12 pm
by nachtjaeger
This guy wasn't so lucky. WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS EXTREMELY DISTURBING. But I hope somebody watches this, and after that takes just a minute to think before they do something that could kill them instantly- or even worse, as in this case NOT kill them instantly. Death was a kindness in this case.
https://youtu.be/hfnEuRA7-vo
Re: Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 3:50 pm
by Fred588
When my data cap allows there is a website I like to visit that streams a live, full-motion video camera aimed at a rail crossing. The crossing has flashing lights, bells, and gates and there is a long freight train about three times an hour typically and sometimes from both directions at once. You don't need to watch very long before someone drives right around the gates and across the tracks, often even at night when the speeds of moving train headlights is very hard to judge.
nachtjaeger wrote:This guy wasn't so lucky. WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS EXTREMELY DISTURBING. But I hope somebody watches this, and after that takes just a minute to think before they do something that could kill them instantly- or even worse, as in this case NOT kill them instantly. Death was a kindness in this case.
https://youtu.be/hfnEuRA7-vo
Re: Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2016 6:22 pm
by kham
That Arc Flash video had seen , but it's no less of a horror show. You don't get a break with electricity. Just don't do it
Re: Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2016 1:15 am
by Boggy Man
If you want to find even more idiots who qualify for the Darwin Award, try Googling "stealing wire electrocuted"! WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC IMAGES!
Re: Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2016 9:03 am
by Mynock
Pure idiocy on all counts. On higher voltage transmission lines you don't even have to physically touch the line to be electrocuted. If you're grounded and get too close it'll just arc out like a Tesla coil and zap you from a distance.

Re: Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2016 11:24 am
by PM2K
Hefty price to pay for stupidity.
Re: Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2016 8:06 pm
by Mynock
nachtjaeger wrote:This guy wasn't so lucky. WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS EXTREMELY DISTURBING. But I hope somebody watches this, and after that takes just a minute to think before they do something that could kill them instantly- or even worse, as in this case NOT kill them instantly. Death was a kindness in this case.
https://youtu.be/hfnEuRA7-vo
I didn't watch this before commenting and should've......RIP....guy was just trying to be good at his job, made one mistake and boom. Safety rules exist for a reason, ESPECIALLY around high voltage. It should go without saying but safety really is the #1 priority. You're life isn't worth a little lost time on the floor.

Re: Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 2:09 am
by nachtjaeger
"Stupidity is the only universal capital crime; there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without mercy." -Heinlein
PM2K wrote:Hefty price to pay for stupidity.
Re: Darwin Award applications- high voltage accident
Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2016 2:16 am
by nachtjaeger
Seriously, this could happen to anybody. As Mark Twain correctly observed, "Everybody is a damned fool for twenty minutes a day."
I haven't been quite the same since I watched this video. Not because of this video- but one of the thumbnails for another video showed the "face" of someone who survived an arc flash. I will never be able to un-see that.

Just grafted one piece of skin from the top of the head to the mouth- nothing to save in between.
Mynock wrote:I didn't watch this before commenting and should've......RIP....guy was just trying to be good at his job, made one mistake and boom. Safety rules exist for a reason, ESPECIALLY around high voltage. It should go without saying but safety really is the #1 priority. You're life isn't worth a little lost time on the floor.
