<O6jbc.22235$ snipped-for-privacy@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>
U callin ME an ASS? Hehe
You're right... The great majority of electrical exposure never goes across the heart... often goes around all the vital organs... I do remember safety in school though... If someone got bit, even by 110VAC, they went to sick bay for a 24 hour observation... Apparently your heart can just stop beating sometimes during the 24 hours after you've been hit. All of our guys came back :)
roast squirrel..
we had a guy that was helping guide a crane down a highway and around a corner.. he put his HAND on the trailer body...
it was a VERY closed casket funeral...
a 76kv line, COOKS TO A CRISP REAL QUICK. --Shiva--
Don't know much about cranes... was it motorized electrically?
The problem is that people *always* make at least a small % of mistakes. So if one does some act a sufficient number of times, one
*will* eventuallly make a mistake - which will be described as "stupid or careless" - but which can't be avoided.That's why, when working with electricity or firearms, one should take some additional steps to keep that certain-to-happen-eventually mistake from being fatal or serious.
"It's live if it isn't grounded." is analogous to "every gun is loaded if it doesn't have its action open".
My guess is that the crane was touching an overhead power line, and that its rubber tires were acting as insulation, and so the unfortunate guy grounded the 76kv line.
The boom probably contacted an overhead line.
no, the boom had swung into a high power line, and the person completed the ground..
--Shiva--
If the tires and road surface were perfect conductors of electricity the guy would have been OK. 76kV means voltage between wires, there would be about 44kV to ground. As the tires are a relatively poor conductor (at least initially - they would soon burn and possibly explode) the guy would have had the best part of 44kV across his body for long enough to be lethal. The power line would trip out once enough current flowed for long enough to activate the protection system but this would not have been fast or sensitive enough to save the guy's life.
It doesn't work that way. Read virtually any safety text on the subject. The power company web pages are a good place to start. Who knows more about it than they do?
the guy would have had the best part of 44kV across his body
Whether or not anything would trip at all depends on how good a ground the guy really is. It's very dangerous in a real situation to assume that any given event has tripped a line off.
I was taught that fuses and breakers are there to protect equipment, not people (until GFI ckts came out).
And that's exactly right. I was reffering to assuming a short, whether via a human being or other object has tripped a line off when attempting to render aid, make repair, etc as the case may be.
A well grounded human being becoming part of the circuit may well trip the line depending on various factors but it won't be in time to save said human being, GFI notwithstanding of course.
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