Holy SH*% Moment!

Merlin Clark · Apr 23, 2012

I'm EOD, how much time do you have?

Nodak7 · Apr 23, 2012

You were very fortunate Billy! Glad you dodged a bullet! I think we all have those "brain dead" moments!

:

FastOlson · Apr 23, 2012

Billy's bio sez his boat is a 1990.
Our '88 boat had no cover over the back of the AC breaker area. About seven years ago an insurance survey report required that I cover that side to prevent accidental contact when the panel was tilted open.
It was an ABYC requirement either codified (or just enforced) since the era when our boat was built.

I had a local plastics vendor (Tapp) bend up a clear acrylic cover from my pattern. Worked great. And, it let me keep the shore power on when working with the panel open -- very handy for powering up tools and lights.

Don S/V ILLusion · Apr 23, 2012

120VAc is over-rated (in terms of danger). Unless you were standing in the ocean, it's improbable you'd experience anything worse than a bad jolt. Among us ham radio tinkerers here, we've done some far dumber things with 3000V but that's another story.

Having said that, 120V can kill but you probably never came close.

Ron20324 · Apr 23, 2012

You can buy those AC rear covers through West and other sources.

weinie · Apr 23, 2012

Todays kids have it easy... with all those plastic outlet covers and all. Way back when, in the prehistoric early seventies, we learned about electricity the hard way. And yet most of us survived. Go figure. I did learn however, that model trains will not run any faster with wires coming right from the wall.

Bill Roosa · Apr 23, 2012

There I was, knee deep in hand grenade pins, calling in SPECTOR fire on my PRC-77.......
My dad, the electrician, always told me to keep one hand in my pocket when manually probing 110 and above. Seems this keeps the current from flowing across your heart and killing you. course he was pretty dired up and presented a significanly higher resistance than plump young Bill

justsomeguy · Apr 23, 2012

Have to agree with Don S/V Illusion, lots of folks are overly worried about 120V. The zap can be scary, but not necessarily deadly.

Feel free to chime in with what you've done that could have killed you but you were lucky enough to walk away learning a big lesson.. After this experience this past weekend, i'd like to hear all of them..

I consider myself one of the luckiest people alive, and some of the things I've gotten away with just confirm this feeling. Long ago, I made a skydive with my chest strap not properly routed through its friction adapter.

Luckily, it was a short freefall, so not too much force was exerted, and I stayed in my harness. I'm always looking at others' gear, besides my own. I've caught quite a few mis-routed chest straps over the years.

oldiesrocker2001 · Apr 23, 2012

My Holy SH*%# moment didnt involve shore power but could have been no less spectacular.
We finally get rigged and launched into Lake George(NY) and pull out beyond the marina limits. We head for the ranger station to check into glen island/narrows section of the lake with our tiny 2-stroke(bigger motor was sent back to seller by shipping co by mistake) and before we raise the main it starts raining cats, dogs, pigs, cows etc. with a fog rolling in as well. I keep pushing the V21 with the outboard and just make it to the ranger island with the motor running out of fuel. I check in etc and then open the lazarette where I stashed the spare fuel(this is not the tank I intended to use but the only 2-stroke fuel can I had). Found that the rough weather had tipped it over and emptied much of it into the bowels of the boat - wouldnt have happend to the standard can I was planning to use. Had I asked the Admiral reach in and turn on the running lights like I was supposed to do in that kind of weather, it's likely the whole boat would have exploded! So, once again I cheated death - this time by dumb luck!

Bob J. · Apr 23, 2012

It's not the voltage but the amperage that gets you.
I've been tweaked more by 12 volts because of the amps than 120 volts.

Stupid moment, as a kid bunch of us dared each other to pee on an electric fence to see if it was working, it was working

Bill Roosa · Apr 23, 2012

Misfits
You must be tender and jucy to get zapped by 12 volts!
I'm so dry now that I can use two fingers to test for 220 or 110 (same hand BTW). the 220 still has a bight though.

Bob J. · Apr 23, 2012

Bill Roosa said:
Misfits
You must be tender and jucy to get zapped by 12 volts!

Hi Sailor

LOL

Ross · Apr 23, 2012

Misfits, You are quite right that it is the amps that will kill you but it is the volts that push the amps. You can hold a bullet harmlessly in your hand but when it is pushed through a gun barrel by a powder charge the equation changes.

Nodak7 · Apr 23, 2012

weinie said:
Todays kids have it easy... with all those plastic outlet covers and all. Way back when, in the prehistoric early seventies, we learned about electricity the hard way. And yet most of us survived. Go figure. I did learn however, that model trains will not run any faster with wires coming right from the wall.

LOL.... Weinie! I am glad I was not the only one to try that one!

DAVA390 · Apr 23, 2012

I dodged a bullett last summer also. As a kid, I spent most summers at my best friends shore home looking out at Hart Milller Island. The wife and I are slowly cruising the coast and around the bend into a creek we often went into with small boats. We are busy admiring the mansions that replaced the shore homes I remember when I notice on of them has a large telephone pole at the bulkhead near the pier. I quickly look up, we are 10-15` off hot wires crossing the creek. I was stearring with the motor, slammed it sideways, wide open throttle,made my very best Bat-turn. Came out of that creek very upset with myself for a very long time!!

Don12364 · Apr 23, 2012

I too have been zapped by 12 Volts. With wet hands I attempted to lift a 12V battery out of a recess. It was very heavy and I needed to grasp it with all my strength. Inadvertently and without thinking I placed one thumb on each terminal post and heaved. The current went up one arm, through my chest (& heart?) and down the other arm.

I then researched it on the web. It only takes 50mA to stun or kill a person and this is easily achieved if the skin is broken so that there is good contact to the inner man at both connections.

Dantodd · Apr 23, 2012

It's the volts that jolts but the mils that kills, as the old saying goes.

I knocked myself half way across the basement as a kid. I was just curious as to how the electrical panel worked. I sure wish that old sump pump was I. Better shape, bare feet on a wet floor is no bueno. Just lucky to have been thrown clear instead of held in by the juice.

RAD · Apr 23, 2012

As an electrician for over 40 years I have been there and back with getting zapped but as an apprentice I was taut to check the juice with my 2 fingers but one day my boss and I stopped at a job site to see if the utility turned on the electric, it was a brand new pad mount transformer with 1200 amp feeders and I opened a panel box took my fingers across ground and the buss bar and it felt like a spark plug jolt X 20 up my arm......turns out it was a 277/480 transformer and should have been 120/208.....shortly after I stopped using my fingers (cause I was scared) and the boss gave me his old tester.....been using one since.
Was about 10 feet away from a lighting strike

20 yrs ago and I survived that and the worst 12 volt story....I was in bare feet,no shirt on a hot summer day and I pull the motor hatches on my Chris Craft Connie to check something on the starboard motor, the battery bank (with no covers)sat between both motors and I hop down and my bare foot was on the positive and I lean over the engine with my wet sweaty body....well I'll never forget that day either (so much for "Its only 12 volts")