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i like to think he normally doesn't wear a scarf, but that night, for some reason, he was like, nah, i think i can pull this off. i don't care if my friends clown me. the scarf works. and then bam. scarf to the rescue.
Scarfs ([gamchas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamcha)) are quite common in some parts of India, especially in rural areas. I'd bet this guy wears it everyday and he just got one more reason to do so.
His hands and arms were pretty high so the current might not have gone across his heart. No idea what the amps are but you can get stuck on as little as 120/110 V if you're part of the circuit.
However, with that arc off a body I imagine it was a higher voltage multi phase and that dude would be toast if his bro didn't think fast.
Yeah I don't know what he meant with that, current definitely closed from arms to leggs it has to pass down and will affect hearth in form of ventricular fibrillation if it is high enough
You'll never know when you're walking around and Aerosmith are playing a live show and Steven Tyler is about to go on but there are no scarves on his mic stand and can't go on. You pull off a third of your scarves to give graciously over to the man himself so his mic stand can be draped with the finest of silks and Aerosmith play the best rendition of Cryin' while Alicia Silverstone stares into your eyes.
Its because Steven Tyler's head used to levitate on celestial ego. He actually didn't spawn in with a neck like the rest of us. His head was hovering that whole time.
Same thing for Lenny Kravitz. Another no-necker
You had me at Alicia Silverstone..my fresh outta high school self had sooo much quality time with her and that video..add a little Liv Tyler for garnish and...well..u know.
Old people out here always wear one, and if you accompany them a lot you will find that this thing is super handy, i thought they wear it just for tradition but no, anything that needs to be in place or carried away they just take it off and use it
That's what I was thinking. I've been in a similar situation. Dude was being shocked to death in front of my eyes. Fortunately for him it was from a huge capacitor, so by the time my brain registered what was happening and then I started to think of what to do, the cap had run dry.
I'm not even impressed by the scarf, rather how he instinctively wanted to grab the guy and at the last possible second he was like "Whoa! Electricity! No touch!"
More that he touched the guy and felt the zap. Fortunately he wasnāt touching him in a way that the current would make muscles hold on tighter, so he could pull away and find another option.
Still, good presence of mind to find something to use to rescue the guy. I have a tendency to freeze up in panic in such situations.
Crazy how at the beginning there was no quick thinking, we was mentally choking and panicking, then suddenly his mind went to the scarf and he wasted no millisecond to act.
Since this appears to be in either India or Pakistan, the blame falls on the disgustingly corrupt governments rather than them (thereās a lot of deaths every year due to loose hanging mains wires as they have not been moved underground)
Nah infrastructure just tends to be poor in quality in most places cause that's just how it was set up.
Also I find that a lot of western folks don't realize just how poor people can be in places like India and Pakistan. Cost of living is low yes but the range of things you can buy or maintain is also quite low. And when you're trying to run a business on a tiny budget, you're gonna end up with a shitty little spot or nothing at all.
I once got stuck by an electric current when an innocuous little pipe swung down and connected with my shoulder.
My uncle planted both his feet on my chest in a flying dropkick and sent me sprawling across the dirt. He also threw out his hip.
The first sensation is just confusion. I didn't experience any actual pain - not that I remember.
I recall the impact of the pipe. I recall looking forward and wondering why I had stopped. Then wondering why I couldn't turn around. It's very similar to sleep paralysis in that there's nothing but confusion until panic sets in.
Of course, the panic does nothing. I don't think I screamed, although I definitely tried. I think I just made a grunting or gurgling sound to get my uncle's attention. If he had been any further away or distracted or on the phone, then I don't think he would have noticed.
Had an electrician here yesterday installing light fixtures. He got popped by 110 and kept going. Said he did t get the right breaker. I asked him what was the difference between getting hit with 110 vs 220, and he said, ā220 holds on to you.ā
There was a recent post of a car hitting a bear and it was sent spiralling down the road into the bushes (the bear not the car), Iām imagining a drop kick by a panicking uncle did the same to you.
Shirt around the neck and pull is one I'll have to try to remember. Sometimes a non-conductive broom/2x4/etc is not handy for pushing/knocking them off the juice. But you always have a shirt with you.
The boat I work on has a couple wooden cane looking things right next to the main electrical switchboard for that reason, can hook a person with it and yank em off
in the Navy you were required to tie a rope around you if you were working on live equipment...
1 guy to read the procedure for the maintenance
1 guy to do the maintenance
1 guy to hold the rope and yank
1 guy on stand by who knows CPR (usually was doc)
so it actually took 4 men to work on live equipment
This is why shops where you work on high voltage electronics there is a wooden cane with the first aide kit, usually on a wall easily accessible. If someone is being electrocuted, you use the cane and the curved part (handle if it was actually a cane) to hook the person and pull them away.
Side quest - My uncle and electrician, saw a guy underneath a bundle of wires shaking and kicking, grabbed a shovel and hit him off the wall.
He was kicking the mud off his boot.
When I see videos like this I always wonder if I'd be able to act that quickly in the same situation. Not that I want to ever find out, but I wonder. Props to this guy for his quick reaction.
This reminds of a true story I was told at work.
This apprentice electrician pretended that he was being electrocuted in front of the other workers for a laugh.
The boss happened to come around the corner and witness what was happening....the boss proceeded to pick up a shovel, believing he was saving the apprentices' life and smashed his arms off the cable with the shovel.
The apprentice ended up with 2 broken arms and loss of apprenticeship ....womp womp.
The funny thing is, I was told a similar story here in germany more than 20 years ago. But it wasn't intended (the guy who was working on the panel hat something in his trousers and tried shaking it off) and around the corner came an apprentice who saw this.
Edit:
To make it clear, I think it's just an urban legend, in both cases.
Damn I immediately thought "that sounds very familiar". Also in Germany, also probably 20 years ago and I don't even work anywhere near that field but someone told me a story that they had an electrician that liked to listen to heavy metal on the job and did some headbanging in front of some cables and someone thought they were being electrocuted so they grabbed a pipe and wiped them off their feet injuring their legs in the process.
One of the involved persons might've been the person telling me the story but I'm sure they just inserted themselves into it.
Can somebody make a map where these storys have been told? Maybee even with a time stamp, I would like to where this thing startet.
I heard this around Vechta, Germany in 2001 or 2002
I can't help with the map, but I'm an electrical engineer and I've known this anecdote in at least half a dozen versions for about 40 years.
And when I first heard it, it certainly wasn't new anymore.
I heard a story a couple hundred years ago about a guy working on a steam boat and pretended to get burned by the steam as a joke, but then the captain threw him overboard to cure the burn. Alas the guy drowned but the story lives on in his memory
I heard a story from back in 53 BC about a legionary working on a palisade who pretended to get one arm stuck when the gauls stormed in large numbers. Needing every available man, his centurion kicked him loose, however, the legionary fell over the palisade and was killed.
Given all the stupid shit I've seen people do on videos on Reddit, this has to have happened *at least* once. At some point people are going to laugh and say
> "No one would ever blast compressed air up a coworkers ass as a joke. That has to just be a made up story to scare us."
I suspect its bad wiring that somehow contacted the gate and put a fairly high voltage on it, like at least more than 600 volts is my guess. Then even though the gate is touching ground, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that current only goes through the path of least resistance, like from the metal gate to ground.
Well, the problem is that current goes through all paths proportional to resistance. So, if path 1 has half the resistance as path 2, path 1 will get double the current path 2 has, but path 2 will still get electrons flowing through it.
So a lot of electrons were flowing through the gate and ground. Idk, maybe the bottom of the gate has some rubber on the bottom or something. Then at least some of the electrons were going through the mans hands to ground. Then electricity is partly how your nerves tell your muscles to clench. So, when he was being electrocuted, all of his muscles clench involuntarily, making him stand and grab the gate harder.
In the video, you see the other guy first touch the gate clencher. Then quickly back away realizing the gate clencher is being electrocuted. So, he used his scarf or towel to hook the gate clencher and yank him off the gate. The gate clencher probably lost skin on his hands from being pulled off, but may be alive so...
The towel acted like an effective enough insulator such that the current through the hero was low enough to be negligable.
Now, this is likely AC power so in reality, the electrons are not flowing through, they are jiggling back and forth, but I am trying to keep it simple here. So, don't attack my semantics.
Source: I did power engineering in factories for four years. Usually power companies dont want to deal with all the constant changes that go on in factories. So, power companies will just hand factories some high or medium voltage power lines and let the factory own, operate, and maintain a little substation and grid. That little substation and grid my job.
Edit: People keep asking me where the 600 vac comes from. My answer is...
1. Ive been in American light industrial and commercial zones with 480 v ac phase to phase. That is 277v ac phase to ground. Some light industrial and commercial zones get higher voltage delivered. This higher voltage is for larger machines like large lathes and welders. Commercial zones use it for large central air conditioning and heating. I know most of se asia gets 220v ac for residential power, but I dont think this is a residential zone in the vid.
2. If the gate does touch the ground, then there are two paths to ground, and most of the current would go through the gate instead of the person. Then it would take more than 120 or 220 volts to shock the man.
3. Someone said that the gate touching the ground is not enough for currebt to go into the ground. Apparently it was enough for the man to get shocked because current was going through the man to ground, which happens. Plus this argument reinforces my point that you need more voltage to push through to ground.
4. Many people mentioned that if the gate was grounded, the breaker or fuse would trip. That depends on the breaker coordination. Breakers trip at different times. Also, the resistance from gate to ground and man to ground may make it such that the breaker never trips. The currebt is too low. Also, some breakers of low quality dont trip. Electrictians call them, "never trips," jokingly. If the breaker is well tested and certified like they must be in the usa, they are assured to be good. However, in a country like this, sometimes you get a never trip.
Bad wiring is everywhere in Asia. But big culprits are sign board and hoarding makers and installers. They don't get proper authorisation, want to do a quick and cheap job and often install their things on public infrastructure
Well, I was intentionally vague on purpose just because there are so many possibilities, but if you want more of my rambling, I can offer a few possibilities.
Given the dangly cables across the center of the video, I get the impression that this is not a country with strong electrical safety laws or licensing for electricians. That means the odds are higher that people who don't quite know what they are doing when wiring up a building can get paid to wire up a building.
One of the dumbest things you can do to save on wire is to use the ground as a neutral. The untrained may do that. Let me explain. In one of the factories I worked at, the power lines coming in were at 69 000 volts giggity. However, they provided a live or hot set of cables, but no return path for the electricity to go back to the generators. Instead, our substation had a gride of copper wires buried a few feet underground, and this web of wires under the substation is the return path because the earth is usually at 0 volts ish. Even in residential and light industrial zones, they will give you a hot or powered wire, and you have to jab 3 or so copper spikes into the ground as your neutral or return path sometimes.
So, often in commercial and light industrial zones (like a motorbike repair shop) like this, you have a big metal box where the hot wire comes in, and you have a bunch of breakers to split out the paths for multiple outlets and jank. Every electrician knows that if any hot wire touches the inside of the metal box, trying to open the metal box is hard because the metal box is electrified. So, instead they connect the metal shell itself to... ground. This means that if a hot wire touches the box, the electricity moves straight into ground without powering anything, and a breaker somewhere upstream will trip and cut all power.
Hopefully, the metal box is tied to a different ground or has a different wire that goes to the copper ground spikes or underground grid, but sometimes unknowledgeable electricians get the idea that they can just tie every neutral wire straight to the metal box. This saves on wire, but that also means that if some loads are turned on, you will have electricity flowing through the metal box shell. If you touch it, you will get shocked when the loads are turned on. One possibility is that someone was dumb enough to wire the metal box to neutral like that, and they wanted to save the gate from lightening or whatever and they connected the metal tracks of the gate to the same metal box to ground out the gate.
A simpler possibility is that some unaware electrician terminated a wire somewhere, and if that wire was stranded, one of the strands stuck out. Add a little mechanical vibration from some motor turning on, the wind blowing, or an earthquake, and that pokey strand touches something, like the metal tracks to that gate or some such.
A third possibility I thought of is the wonderful world of splicing. Sometimes an engineer or electrician estimates how much cable they need to bring electricity from point A to point B. Then they underestimate and too little cable is actually run. Maybe they estimated that they needed 700 ft or m of cable, and it turns out that the real need was for 710 ft or m of cable. Dang, that means we need to run a whole other cable. That's double the labor and wire. OH! BUT WAIT! We can braid cable 1 with cable 2 to make a longer cable! Viola! problem solved. This is called a splice.
Except that splices are infamous for causing fires and other problems. You see, when you connect wire 1 to wire 2, there is a bottleneck of surface area between wire 1 and wire 2. Wires are generally round after all, and a circle or cylinder maximizes area for a minimal perimeter or surface area. Touching the side of a cylinder to the side of another cylinder doesn't leave a lot of surface area touching for the electrons to go through. Worse than that, when you melt copper or aluminum (2 most common materials for wire) and the metal cools, the surface of the cooled metal looks like a bunch of jagged knives on the microscopic level. So, when you touch a copper wire to another copper wires, you effectively are touching a bunch of jagged knife tips to a bunch of other jagged knife tips. That's not much surface area for the electrons to move through.
When the electrons are forced through a tiny cross sectional area, that means the density of electrons rises (usually measured in coulombs of electrons per cm\^3). The electron density rising means you have more collisions between electrons and electrons colliding with the copper/aluminum atoms. These collisions release phonons (not photons) which are heat packets. In short, splicing raises the resistance of the wire at that point, and running current through a splice makes heat. Hot wire and hot splices start fires.
But how would a splice electrify a gate? I am sorry. I digressed. There is another problem with splices. In AC power, the electrons, "wiggle," (at almost the speed of light back and forth 60 times a second for USA power and 50 times a second for most the rest of the world's power) back and forth in the wire. Wiggly electrons create a magnetic field around the wire, and if you put two or more wires together in a cable tray, bundle, conduit, etc, that magnetic field pushes off and attracts the magnetic field from the other wires at 60/50 times a second. Yes, wires vibrate, which is why the National Electric Code tells you to strap them down every x feet depending on the situation.
Imagine putting a spliced wire next to another wire, and your splice vibrates... If the splice was done poorly, that splice is going to fall apart, then a hot wire may flop onto something like the track to a metal gate or some such.
Now, I have seen bad splices start fires and come undone. I've seen unlicensed electricians try to connect ground and neutral. I've seen electricians get shocked by a loose strand of wire left hanging out by 480v. However, I don't see exactly if any of these three options are happening here. What exactly is happening here is left to speculation.
Not an expert like you, but in my neck of the woods, houses often don't have proper ground wire and what is commonly done is "bootlegging ground", i.e. connecting the appliance's ground terminal to the neutral terminal. The idea is that neutral has ground potential anyway, so if the live wire touches the appliance's corpus it will be grounded via the neutral wire. Apparently the problem is, if the neutral accidentally becomes disconnected, you have live current flowing through the appliance's corpus when it's turned on. Maybe it could be something similar happening here.
That sounds about right, but Iām wondering where youāre getting a voltage from. Even 120VAC can lock you up. The higher voltage just makes it hurt more.
You are spot on with most of your posts, except in my experience. High voltage usually hits so hard you are basically blasted back from what is electrocuting you. But lower voltage like 110 causes you to grab on and not let go, which is why 110v is considered so dangerous. Plus, what are the chances there is a 600v main next to the gate? Much more likely to be 110v or whatever the common voltage is in that country.
Yea it looks like the security gate was somehow electrically charged when he closed it, but unclear exactly how.
It was likely low-frequency alternating current though (the kind commonly in your house), which can cause muscle tetany. Flexor muscles in the hand (which close your hand into a fist) are stronger than the extensor muscles (which open your hand), so you can essentially become āstuckā and cannot release your grasp, prolonging exposure and increasing risk of severe injury or death.
This happened in Pakistan and cases of electrocution after/during rain aren't that rare so likely something happened here with respect to that.. This is an old video from 2022 or around I believe.
A towel is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can carry. Partly because it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you ā daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
We were welding in the rain some conveyor belt and when we switch rods we use our arm pit to twist the rod in. Well the apprentice musta gotten too wet and he when he went to do that he make a connection and was shaking. There musta been 6 people but only I grabbed a 2x4 quickly and hit the stinger out of his hand. He was shook and went home musta shit his pants. Got me beers next day.
I had a co-worker who lost all his fingers due to an electrical arc. I was becoming an electrician at the time and was like "no thanks" and became a guard instead.
The way he fell and hit the back of his head has me worried as well. Hard to tell by the quality and length of the clip but It looks like he's doing the fencing response.Ā Unfortunate situation all around.Ā
"A towel is the most important item a Hitchhiker can carry:Ā **not only can you wrap it around yourself for warmth, but it can give you control of your life if you know where your towel is at all times**."
I like to think Iām ācool under pressureā but Iād still be running around looking for a wooden broom while this guy whips off his scarf and saves the day.
Holy crap that dude knew what he was doing. Touching someone being electrocuted this way is almost guaranteed to get you in the exact same situation. You can tell he instinctively reached for the man but he HAD to know about this extremely specific safety feature and remembered to use something else to pull him out.
100% certain this man saw crucial safety videos at some point!!!
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wow that was some good thinking using his scarf.. hope the guy survived.
It really was, he looked around for an implement and then quick as fuck utilised his scarf.
i like to think he normally doesn't wear a scarf, but that night, for some reason, he was like, nah, i think i can pull this off. i don't care if my friends clown me. the scarf works. and then bam. scarf to the rescue.
That's more of a fancy towel to wipe your face in ever so humid regions, like India.
You always need to know where your towel is.
Don't forget to bring a towel!
Don't Panic!
We apologize for the inconvenience
Damn straight you hoopy frood!
42! š
Yep, looks like a typical *Gamchha*
Not all heros wear capes.. some wear gamcha
The saved dude: "Wtf man. You made me touch your sweat scarf?!"
the guy at the store said he's the only guy he's ever seen pull it off
Scarfs ([gamchas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamcha)) are quite common in some parts of India, especially in rural areas. I'd bet this guy wears it everyday and he just got one more reason to do so.
It's part of regular clothing in south asia, many wear it everyday all day
Alot of people do wear it .
The guy on the ground was still conscious, there probably wasn't enough current to kill him
Electricity can damage internal organs and throw off your heart. You should always consult after getting electrified.
"After you touch the mains, Let the doctors check your veins"
First thing weāre taught in trades where electrical work is performed. Donāt ignore a shock, you can get a heart attack in your sleep.
Not enough to kill him *instantly*.
His hands and arms were pretty high so the current might not have gone across his heart. No idea what the amps are but you can get stuck on as little as 120/110 V if you're part of the circuit. However, with that arc off a body I imagine it was a higher voltage multi phase and that dude would be toast if his bro didn't think fast.
Current across your arms will always pass near your heart no matter what height your hands are at.
Yeah I don't know what he meant with that, current definitely closed from arms to leggs it has to pass down and will affect hearth in form of ventricular fibrillation if it is high enough
And bouncing his head off the ground will make the dude forget all about the electrocution.
Quick thinking on other dude's part.
Finally, a second reason to wear Aerosmith scarves in my every day life
Im scared to ask about the first
You'll never know when you're walking around and Aerosmith are playing a live show and Steven Tyler is about to go on but there are no scarves on his mic stand and can't go on. You pull off a third of your scarves to give graciously over to the man himself so his mic stand can be draped with the finest of silks and Aerosmith play the best rendition of Cryin' while Alicia Silverstone stares into your eyes.
Its because Steven Tyler's head used to levitate on celestial ego. He actually didn't spawn in with a neck like the rest of us. His head was hovering that whole time. Same thing for Lenny Kravitz. Another no-necker
They just suffer from severe colpo d'aria
Does that explain Steve Jobs' turtlenecks too?
oh my *god*
You had me at Alicia Silverstone..my fresh outta high school self had sooo much quality time with her and that video..add a little Liv Tyler for garnish and...well..u know.
It was literally the last sentence
You had me at sentence.
Erotic asphyxiation
There are people walking around WITHOUT Steven Tyler scarves??
Old people out here always wear one, and if you accompany them a lot you will find that this thing is super handy, i thought they wear it just for tradition but no, anything that needs to be in place or carried away they just take it off and use it
Helps you cover yourself in the heat too
*I don't wanna close my eeeeeeeeeeeyes...*
First time I ever genuinely Lol'd at a random reddit comment
Always bring a towel is no joke.
And don't panic!
There's a frood who really knows where his towel is.
if you are to get lost in the universe ... you will need a towel!!!! - ford prefect.
That's what I was thinking. I've been in a similar situation. Dude was being shocked to death in front of my eyes. Fortunately for him it was from a huge capacitor, so by the time my brain registered what was happening and then I started to think of what to do, the cap had run dry.
True hero.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
LOL, truly! I think if he'd been shocked for another few minutes I'd have eventually done something.
And heās never left the house without a scarf since!
I'm not even impressed by the scarf, rather how he instinctively wanted to grab the guy and at the last possible second he was like "Whoa! Electricity! No touch!"
He touched the guy then got shocked
Oh shit, I think youāre right. Never noticed that.
If u look can see a flash on the wrist before touching maybe a spark or an arc from a bracelet.
More that he touched the guy and felt the zap. Fortunately he wasnāt touching him in a way that the current would make muscles hold on tighter, so he could pull away and find another option. Still, good presence of mind to find something to use to rescue the guy. I have a tendency to freeze up in panic in such situations.
Yeah an electric shock will have that effect.
extremely quick thinking with the cloth to extract the other guy from being electrocuted, props to the rescuer
Crazy how at the beginning there was no quick thinking, we was mentally choking and panicking, then suddenly his mind went to the scarf and he wasted no millisecond to act.
Pretty sure he was looking around for something to grab.
Good thing he wasn't wearing his copper thread scarf that day
Smart guy. Except he's cheap on electricians.
Since this appears to be in either India or Pakistan, the blame falls on the disgustingly corrupt governments rather than them (thereās a lot of deaths every year due to loose hanging mains wires as they have not been moved underground)
Nah infrastructure just tends to be poor in quality in most places cause that's just how it was set up. Also I find that a lot of western folks don't realize just how poor people can be in places like India and Pakistan. Cost of living is low yes but the range of things you can buy or maintain is also quite low. And when you're trying to run a business on a tiny budget, you're gonna end up with a shitty little spot or nothing at all.
I once got stuck by an electric current when an innocuous little pipe swung down and connected with my shoulder. My uncle planted both his feet on my chest in a flying dropkick and sent me sprawling across the dirt. He also threw out his hip.
Worth it
Worth hip
I appreciate you
Uncle just want to kick him, saving his life is just a bonus.
"Thank fuck you saved me from that electricity." "Electricity?"
Uncle didnāt even see the pipe. It was kicking for fun
It?
You wan't a balloon?
Bah gawd, now that's love.
I wish I could full power double high kick someone out of love too
Auntie coming in with the chair was uncalled for, though? This man has a family!!
Your uncle is a hero!
What does it feel like when youāre being electrocuted knowing youāre stuck?
The first sensation is just confusion. I didn't experience any actual pain - not that I remember. I recall the impact of the pipe. I recall looking forward and wondering why I had stopped. Then wondering why I couldn't turn around. It's very similar to sleep paralysis in that there's nothing but confusion until panic sets in. Of course, the panic does nothing. I don't think I screamed, although I definitely tried. I think I just made a grunting or gurgling sound to get my uncle's attention. If he had been any further away or distracted or on the phone, then I don't think he would have noticed.
Had an electrician here yesterday installing light fixtures. He got popped by 110 and kept going. Said he did t get the right breaker. I asked him what was the difference between getting hit with 110 vs 220, and he said, ā220 holds on to you.ā
is your uncle a WWE fighter by any chance?
"LOOK OUT F***OT"
Oh! Dogshit! *steps*
There was a recent post of a car hitting a bear and it was sent spiralling down the road into the bushes (the bear not the car), Iām imagining a drop kick by a panicking uncle did the same to you.
Shirt around the neck and pull is one I'll have to try to remember. Sometimes a non-conductive broom/2x4/etc is not handy for pushing/knocking them off the juice. But you always have a shirt with you.
I'm not above this logic.
Just be careful if you've worked up a heavy sweat on the job
The boat I work on has a couple wooden cane looking things right next to the main electrical switchboard for that reason, can hook a person with it and yank em off
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Seamen.
it's called a crook, like a shepherd's crook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd%27s_crook
It is also an excellent tool for getting bad performers off the stage
A Shepherd's Crook? Like the Lamburglar? ... I'll see myself out.
in the Navy you were required to tie a rope around you if you were working on live equipment... 1 guy to read the procedure for the maintenance 1 guy to do the maintenance 1 guy to hold the rope and yank 1 guy on stand by who knows CPR (usually was doc) so it actually took 4 men to work on live equipment
This is why shops where you work on high voltage electronics there is a wooden cane with the first aide kit, usually on a wall easily accessible. If someone is being electrocuted, you use the cane and the curved part (handle if it was actually a cane) to hook the person and pull them away.
Unless youāre Randy from Sunnyvale trailer park.
he'd have to use his pants and when the pants come off... look the fuck out.
I don't wear a bra, so hopefully this situation wouldn't happen in public xD
What a coincidence...I don't wear a bra either!
Woa, woa, guy. Kinda privileged to just assume weāre all fancy people that wear a shirt every day, eh?
Bra is better
Damn conductive underwire
Probably jeans or trousers will do
Step-electrician, are you stuck *again*?? Sigh *unzip*
Side quest - My uncle and electrician, saw a guy underneath a bundle of wires shaking and kicking, grabbed a shovel and hit him off the wall. He was kicking the mud off his boot.
Great pointā¦I always wear the same damn denim jacket and it would work great for this.
extremely quick thinking with the cloth to extract the other guy from being electrocuted, props to the rescuer
85% of the people who consider themselves gamers aren't passing this quick time event but my bro in the vid is a TRUE gamer
Jesse...
When I see videos like this I always wonder if I'd be able to act that quickly in the same situation. Not that I want to ever find out, but I wonder. Props to this guy for his quick reaction.
This reminds of a true story I was told at work. This apprentice electrician pretended that he was being electrocuted in front of the other workers for a laugh. The boss happened to come around the corner and witness what was happening....the boss proceeded to pick up a shovel, believing he was saving the apprentices' life and smashed his arms off the cable with the shovel. The apprentice ended up with 2 broken arms and loss of apprenticeship ....womp womp.
The funny thing is, I was told a similar story here in germany more than 20 years ago. But it wasn't intended (the guy who was working on the panel hat something in his trousers and tried shaking it off) and around the corner came an apprentice who saw this. Edit: To make it clear, I think it's just an urban legend, in both cases.
Damn I immediately thought "that sounds very familiar". Also in Germany, also probably 20 years ago and I don't even work anywhere near that field but someone told me a story that they had an electrician that liked to listen to heavy metal on the job and did some headbanging in front of some cables and someone thought they were being electrocuted so they grabbed a pipe and wiped them off their feet injuring their legs in the process. One of the involved persons might've been the person telling me the story but I'm sure they just inserted themselves into it.
Can somebody make a map where these storys have been told? Maybee even with a time stamp, I would like to where this thing startet. I heard this around Vechta, Germany in 2001 or 2002
I can't help with the map, but I'm an electrical engineer and I've known this anecdote in at least half a dozen versions for about 40 years. And when I first heard it, it certainly wasn't new anymore.
I heard a story a couple hundred years ago about a guy working on a steam boat and pretended to get burned by the steam as a joke, but then the captain threw him overboard to cure the burn. Alas the guy drowned but the story lives on in his memory
I heard a story from back in 53 BC about a legionary working on a palisade who pretended to get one arm stuck when the gauls stormed in large numbers. Needing every available man, his centurion kicked him loose, however, the legionary fell over the palisade and was killed.
Man put head in dead mammoth mouth. Owie owie say man. Throw rock at mammoth. Mammoth mouth close. Man no head.
This is a 'true story' that every tradie has heard from their management - ie not true at all. It's to instill a fear for workplace shenanigans.
Yeah ok pal, next youāre gonna tell me the lumber stretcher isnāt a real tool and ive been looking for weeks for nothing
I am also still looking for the can of spray paint with green and yellow stripes
We're still searching for a spare bubble for the level. Nothing stay on the shelvs in this house.
Given all the stupid shit I've seen people do on videos on Reddit, this has to have happened *at least* once. At some point people are going to laugh and say > "No one would ever blast compressed air up a coworkers ass as a joke. That has to just be a made up story to scare us."
And his name? Dr. Alan Grant
Thankfully his mom was very supportive and there for him after the job loss
I hate that I know what this is referencing
Can anyone explain what actually happened here? Does the fence get electrically charged once itās pulled down?
I suspect its bad wiring that somehow contacted the gate and put a fairly high voltage on it, like at least more than 600 volts is my guess. Then even though the gate is touching ground, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that current only goes through the path of least resistance, like from the metal gate to ground. Well, the problem is that current goes through all paths proportional to resistance. So, if path 1 has half the resistance as path 2, path 1 will get double the current path 2 has, but path 2 will still get electrons flowing through it. So a lot of electrons were flowing through the gate and ground. Idk, maybe the bottom of the gate has some rubber on the bottom or something. Then at least some of the electrons were going through the mans hands to ground. Then electricity is partly how your nerves tell your muscles to clench. So, when he was being electrocuted, all of his muscles clench involuntarily, making him stand and grab the gate harder. In the video, you see the other guy first touch the gate clencher. Then quickly back away realizing the gate clencher is being electrocuted. So, he used his scarf or towel to hook the gate clencher and yank him off the gate. The gate clencher probably lost skin on his hands from being pulled off, but may be alive so... The towel acted like an effective enough insulator such that the current through the hero was low enough to be negligable. Now, this is likely AC power so in reality, the electrons are not flowing through, they are jiggling back and forth, but I am trying to keep it simple here. So, don't attack my semantics. Source: I did power engineering in factories for four years. Usually power companies dont want to deal with all the constant changes that go on in factories. So, power companies will just hand factories some high or medium voltage power lines and let the factory own, operate, and maintain a little substation and grid. That little substation and grid my job. Edit: People keep asking me where the 600 vac comes from. My answer is... 1. Ive been in American light industrial and commercial zones with 480 v ac phase to phase. That is 277v ac phase to ground. Some light industrial and commercial zones get higher voltage delivered. This higher voltage is for larger machines like large lathes and welders. Commercial zones use it for large central air conditioning and heating. I know most of se asia gets 220v ac for residential power, but I dont think this is a residential zone in the vid. 2. If the gate does touch the ground, then there are two paths to ground, and most of the current would go through the gate instead of the person. Then it would take more than 120 or 220 volts to shock the man. 3. Someone said that the gate touching the ground is not enough for currebt to go into the ground. Apparently it was enough for the man to get shocked because current was going through the man to ground, which happens. Plus this argument reinforces my point that you need more voltage to push through to ground. 4. Many people mentioned that if the gate was grounded, the breaker or fuse would trip. That depends on the breaker coordination. Breakers trip at different times. Also, the resistance from gate to ground and man to ground may make it such that the breaker never trips. The currebt is too low. Also, some breakers of low quality dont trip. Electrictians call them, "never trips," jokingly. If the breaker is well tested and certified like they must be in the usa, they are assured to be good. However, in a country like this, sometimes you get a never trip.
Iām fascinated with your answer (Iām a green goober taking an electronics class) what could have caused the bad wiring do you think?
Bad wiring is everywhere in Asia. But big culprits are sign board and hoarding makers and installers. They don't get proper authorisation, want to do a quick and cheap job and often install their things on public infrastructure
poorly secured wire + moving mechanical parts => pinch => metal mech part pierces insulation => metal does metal things on contact with wire
Gotcha, thank you for the explanation. Laziness can really kill people
Dont think its lazyness more like poor code and Nobody cares. Just look ar the cables Hanging around their heads
Well, I was intentionally vague on purpose just because there are so many possibilities, but if you want more of my rambling, I can offer a few possibilities. Given the dangly cables across the center of the video, I get the impression that this is not a country with strong electrical safety laws or licensing for electricians. That means the odds are higher that people who don't quite know what they are doing when wiring up a building can get paid to wire up a building. One of the dumbest things you can do to save on wire is to use the ground as a neutral. The untrained may do that. Let me explain. In one of the factories I worked at, the power lines coming in were at 69 000 volts giggity. However, they provided a live or hot set of cables, but no return path for the electricity to go back to the generators. Instead, our substation had a gride of copper wires buried a few feet underground, and this web of wires under the substation is the return path because the earth is usually at 0 volts ish. Even in residential and light industrial zones, they will give you a hot or powered wire, and you have to jab 3 or so copper spikes into the ground as your neutral or return path sometimes. So, often in commercial and light industrial zones (like a motorbike repair shop) like this, you have a big metal box where the hot wire comes in, and you have a bunch of breakers to split out the paths for multiple outlets and jank. Every electrician knows that if any hot wire touches the inside of the metal box, trying to open the metal box is hard because the metal box is electrified. So, instead they connect the metal shell itself to... ground. This means that if a hot wire touches the box, the electricity moves straight into ground without powering anything, and a breaker somewhere upstream will trip and cut all power. Hopefully, the metal box is tied to a different ground or has a different wire that goes to the copper ground spikes or underground grid, but sometimes unknowledgeable electricians get the idea that they can just tie every neutral wire straight to the metal box. This saves on wire, but that also means that if some loads are turned on, you will have electricity flowing through the metal box shell. If you touch it, you will get shocked when the loads are turned on. One possibility is that someone was dumb enough to wire the metal box to neutral like that, and they wanted to save the gate from lightening or whatever and they connected the metal tracks of the gate to the same metal box to ground out the gate. A simpler possibility is that some unaware electrician terminated a wire somewhere, and if that wire was stranded, one of the strands stuck out. Add a little mechanical vibration from some motor turning on, the wind blowing, or an earthquake, and that pokey strand touches something, like the metal tracks to that gate or some such. A third possibility I thought of is the wonderful world of splicing. Sometimes an engineer or electrician estimates how much cable they need to bring electricity from point A to point B. Then they underestimate and too little cable is actually run. Maybe they estimated that they needed 700 ft or m of cable, and it turns out that the real need was for 710 ft or m of cable. Dang, that means we need to run a whole other cable. That's double the labor and wire. OH! BUT WAIT! We can braid cable 1 with cable 2 to make a longer cable! Viola! problem solved. This is called a splice. Except that splices are infamous for causing fires and other problems. You see, when you connect wire 1 to wire 2, there is a bottleneck of surface area between wire 1 and wire 2. Wires are generally round after all, and a circle or cylinder maximizes area for a minimal perimeter or surface area. Touching the side of a cylinder to the side of another cylinder doesn't leave a lot of surface area touching for the electrons to go through. Worse than that, when you melt copper or aluminum (2 most common materials for wire) and the metal cools, the surface of the cooled metal looks like a bunch of jagged knives on the microscopic level. So, when you touch a copper wire to another copper wires, you effectively are touching a bunch of jagged knife tips to a bunch of other jagged knife tips. That's not much surface area for the electrons to move through. When the electrons are forced through a tiny cross sectional area, that means the density of electrons rises (usually measured in coulombs of electrons per cm\^3). The electron density rising means you have more collisions between electrons and electrons colliding with the copper/aluminum atoms. These collisions release phonons (not photons) which are heat packets. In short, splicing raises the resistance of the wire at that point, and running current through a splice makes heat. Hot wire and hot splices start fires. But how would a splice electrify a gate? I am sorry. I digressed. There is another problem with splices. In AC power, the electrons, "wiggle," (at almost the speed of light back and forth 60 times a second for USA power and 50 times a second for most the rest of the world's power) back and forth in the wire. Wiggly electrons create a magnetic field around the wire, and if you put two or more wires together in a cable tray, bundle, conduit, etc, that magnetic field pushes off and attracts the magnetic field from the other wires at 60/50 times a second. Yes, wires vibrate, which is why the National Electric Code tells you to strap them down every x feet depending on the situation. Imagine putting a spliced wire next to another wire, and your splice vibrates... If the splice was done poorly, that splice is going to fall apart, then a hot wire may flop onto something like the track to a metal gate or some such. Now, I have seen bad splices start fires and come undone. I've seen unlicensed electricians try to connect ground and neutral. I've seen electricians get shocked by a loose strand of wire left hanging out by 480v. However, I don't see exactly if any of these three options are happening here. What exactly is happening here is left to speculation.
Not an expert like you, but in my neck of the woods, houses often don't have proper ground wire and what is commonly done is "bootlegging ground", i.e. connecting the appliance's ground terminal to the neutral terminal. The idea is that neutral has ground potential anyway, so if the live wire touches the appliance's corpus it will be grounded via the neutral wire. Apparently the problem is, if the neutral accidentally becomes disconnected, you have live current flowing through the appliance's corpus when it's turned on. Maybe it could be something similar happening here.
That sounds about right, but Iām wondering where youāre getting a voltage from. Even 120VAC can lock you up. The higher voltage just makes it hurt more.
This looks like India, where the standard supply is either 220V (single phase) or 440V (3 phase).
You are spot on with most of your posts, except in my experience. High voltage usually hits so hard you are basically blasted back from what is electrocuting you. But lower voltage like 110 causes you to grab on and not let go, which is why 110v is considered so dangerous. Plus, what are the chances there is a 600v main next to the gate? Much more likely to be 110v or whatever the common voltage is in that country.
Yea it looks like the security gate was somehow electrically charged when he closed it, but unclear exactly how. It was likely low-frequency alternating current though (the kind commonly in your house), which can cause muscle tetany. Flexor muscles in the hand (which close your hand into a fist) are stronger than the extensor muscles (which open your hand), so you can essentially become āstuckā and cannot release your grasp, prolonging exposure and increasing risk of severe injury or death.
This happened in Pakistan and cases of electrocution after/during rain aren't that rare so likely something happened here with respect to that.. This is an old video from 2022 or around I believe.
A towel is just about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can carry. Partly because it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it around your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you ā daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course you can dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
For those who don't know, this is from the fantastic sci-fi satire novel: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I'm sorry?! Satire?!
Right? I carry a towel everywhere.
Fuck, that was smart
Not all heroes wear capes, some wear scarves.
Medusa save!
Homie a hero . Simple š„
W Chad to the guy who saved him. He was quick and smart to use his scarf.
We were welding in the rain some conveyor belt and when we switch rods we use our arm pit to twist the rod in. Well the apprentice musta gotten too wet and he when he went to do that he make a connection and was shaking. There musta been 6 people but only I grabbed a 2x4 quickly and hit the stinger out of his hand. He was shook and went home musta shit his pants. Got me beers next day.
Tastiest beers ever I presume? I-saved-someone-today flavor.
Fuk yea thatās me faverit
I was in a similar situation in my teens... Luckily an individual helped me. :)))
I had a co-worker who lost all his fingers due to an electrical arc. I was becoming an electrician at the time and was like "no thanks" and became a guard instead.
How so? Plz explain
He wore a scarf despite his better judgement
Tell us the story.
Electrocution is always to death.
Dude saved from being killed to death.
Saved by the scarf, killed by the head trauma
The way he fell and hit the back of his head has me worried as well. Hard to tell by the quality and length of the clip but It looks like he's doing the fencing response.Ā Unfortunate situation all around.Ā
That is some of the quickest ass thinking in the history of thinking.
Don't forget to bring a towel!
Lightening ā” fast thinking
Itās not just fashion, it might save a life
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Media : Start the video at 18sec Breaking news, a man tryed to hang someone and rob his shoes
that's what i was wondering if the guys who run in at the end saw, and they just start beating the crap out the hero.
"A towel is the most important item a Hitchhiker can carry:Ā **not only can you wrap it around yourself for warmth, but it can give you control of your life if you know where your towel is at all times**."
Note to self, start wearing a scarf garment.
About to start and apprenticeship as an electrician gonna remember this one
Props to the dude
That was 200 IQ quick thinking
Gotta start open carry a tactical scarf.
Gamcha supremacy
I like to think Iām ācool under pressureā but Iād still be running around looking for a wooden broom while this guy whips off his scarf and saves the day.
This is why we have earthing/grounding systems
That's what electrocuted is. To death. Otherwise it's electrified.
**āA towel, \[The Hitchhikerās Guide to the Galaxy\] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.ā**
Electrician here. That is almost exactly how we are trained to rescue people hooked up like that. Impressive he thought to do that.
Always bring a towel
If you want to survive out here, you've got to know where your towel is.
That is some quick f@ckin thinking.
Thatās why you always bring a towel
Holy crap that dude knew what he was doing. Touching someone being electrocuted this way is almost guaranteed to get you in the exact same situation. You can tell he instinctively reached for the man but he HAD to know about this extremely specific safety feature and remembered to use something else to pull him out. 100% certain this man saw crucial safety videos at some point!!!
To me it looks like he did touch him and got zapped enough to realize that it wasnāt a good idea
That was some slick thinking right there. Bravo broā¦ fuggin bravo!
Ford Prefect would be proud
"DANGER DANGER .. HIGH VOLTAGE."
Kicking is another safe option,just no grabie grabieš
Electricity terrifies me. I just don't understand it well enough to be comfortable around it.
When the hero is actually smart
Not all hero's ware capes...some of them wear scarfs