Mr C's worst electric shock [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
When the washing machine short-circuited (metal housing, standing water in metallic tumbler...), the fuse did not cut off the residual current, which now ran from the washing machine along the water supply and therefore the metallic water tap.
So suspecting nothing, as usual I wanted to cut off the water supply by closing the water tap valve.
The moment I grap the valve I notice some stroboscopic vibrations, following the realization that it's an electric current making my hand cramp tightly on the water tap.
It was really challenging to take off my hand.
I'm sure it was only a small fraction of the full, possible current / energy that eventually went through my body / hand. But it was already enough to keep me stuck — and give my heart rate extra systolic beats.
Living alone back then, I went on the street and called an ambulance.
After half an hour, my heart rhythm normalized, and on my written confirmation, I left the hospital, as I would not able to sleep that night in an unknown hospital.
After I left the hospital, I figured out at which hospital and part of town the ambulance car brought me.
Having no cash with me, I walked the 45 minutes back home at night, rationalizing and taking it as a test for my heart.
The next day, I went to work as usual. My colleagues asked me why I didn't take a day off. I let them know that if my heart started making weird beats again, I'd rather prefer to be with them than being home alone.
The current burned a path across the back of my hand. Luckily my bouncing around inside the cabinet didn't break anything. Took a few weeks to heal.
It really made me appreciate modular designs, where the power supply and CRT are completely fenced off in its own enclosure.
So why isn’t wearing insulated gloves universal? I assume it makes work much less comfortable?
The proper thing to do is de-energize the circuit/panelboard/switchgear/etc you’re working on and test to ensure it’s dead before any live conductors are exposed. Insulated gloves are not needed if you’re working on dead circuits.
If you have no choice but to work on a live circuit, then you use properly rated insulated gloves. Insulated PPE and tools for low-voltage equipment are usually rated up to 1000v.
If you’re certain a circuit is de-energized and you lock out the breaker or disconnecting means with a LOTO kit, it’s as safe as you can reasonably assume it to be, someone would need to cut off a lock with bolt cutters and turn the breaker or switch back on for the circuit to become re-energized.
(No formatting as the video does not offer captions.)
I watch A LOT of YouTube.
When it's just a video of someone talking and waving their hands, I move on. (As opposed to diagrams, different shots, close ups, ect.)
Why? If it's just someone talking, that's better presented as a written blog entry. Written blog entries can be skimmed instead of focused on.
A video like this needs close ups of the matter at hand, at a minimum. (IE, a close up of how the shock happened.) Diagrams, which could either be hand-drawn or "professional," are also nice too.
I know that everyone has different production values on Youtube; but merely sitting on a stool for 13 minutes without any kind of demonstration is a poor use of the medium. Switch to a written blog in this case.
Also his tone in this video is very different from his normal professional self. It's very much laid back, "holy fuck this is how I almost died." I suppose you need to be a regular of his channel to appreciate this video. It's always neat to see people that have a professional persona are really just normal people.