What Is Meant Exactly By, "Being Grounded" ?
- Thread starter billt
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I've seen this happen with my own eyes to someone. Homeboy was dead in the first couple seconds. Just a split second exhale/scream as all the muscles/vocal cords tense up, then silence. The rest of the time is just cooking from rare to extra crispy, then becoming brittle, breaking apart, and plopping to the ground like a sack of dry watermelons when the bones break apart. It's a sound I'll never forget.
Electricity has zero fucks to give.
And this is where your call is transferred to when you're having, "computer issues".
Trains bite pretty hard too
That piece of burnt chicken wasn't wearing the proper clothing for working with high voltage .
Northern Iraq looked just like that. I ripped down more then one low hanging wire with a MRAP...
I was in Karachi in 1974 ...in Navy Whites
Everyone looked at us funny and weren’t very friendly.And India. And Africa, where they have electricity.
Saw dudes in Africa take wires on a stick and hook it to other naked wires in this kind of bird nest so they can have lights in their repair shops at night. Its all safe until it isn't.
When you're HOT you're HOT!........ Jerry Reed.
We rented cranes to one of the largest utilities in the eastern half of the USA.
You would be amazed at the amount of dumb asses we'd find stealing ground grids out of transformer farms.
They usually have a partner saw in their hands when we find them.
You would be amazed at the amount of dumb asses we'd find stealing ground grids out of transformer farms.
They usually have a partner saw in their hands when we find them.
This is one of my favorite videos because of the tech, the imagery, and the sage narrator.
"What does it mean to be grounded?"
An example is the way an electric bulb works. One end of the element is connected to the ground, the threaded part of the lightbulb base. The other end is connected to the center part in the lightbulb base. When the bulb is energized the element glows and produces light. It also produces heat. It doesn't burn up because the element is in a vacuum, or oxygen free environment.
Another example is a bird or other animal on a live power line. All is well until they touch a grounded surface at the same time. Such as a pole ground wire, pole hardware, the top of a transformer, ect.
Electrocution is a terrible way to die. Note the smoke coming off of the train guys body. Surviving a high voltage electrical contact is said to be very painful. I know a few guys that have survived electrical contacts. One of them had only one ear, no hair on part of his head and a steel hook in place of one arm. Another has what looks like a knife scar running from each elbow down to his wrist and scars that completely encircle each arm at the wrist, like you do when skinning a game animal. Surgeons made those scars so that the swelling had a place to go and would not burst the meat on his arms. I've also lost a few friends in the business.
I spent a career doing hotline work but I never worked anything off of a helicopter. That first contact that the Lineman on the video made was to drain the static from the helicopter caused by the air movement over the aircraft body and blades through the air. The next contact that the Lineman made was to attach a lead from the aircraft to the hot phase to bring himself and the aircraft to the same potential as the phase that he was working. The video failed to show the wheelbarrow that the Lineman needed to carry his balls in!
An example is the way an electric bulb works. One end of the element is connected to the ground, the threaded part of the lightbulb base. The other end is connected to the center part in the lightbulb base. When the bulb is energized the element glows and produces light. It also produces heat. It doesn't burn up because the element is in a vacuum, or oxygen free environment.
Another example is a bird or other animal on a live power line. All is well until they touch a grounded surface at the same time. Such as a pole ground wire, pole hardware, the top of a transformer, ect.
Electrocution is a terrible way to die. Note the smoke coming off of the train guys body. Surviving a high voltage electrical contact is said to be very painful. I know a few guys that have survived electrical contacts. One of them had only one ear, no hair on part of his head and a steel hook in place of one arm. Another has what looks like a knife scar running from each elbow down to his wrist and scars that completely encircle each arm at the wrist, like you do when skinning a game animal. Surgeons made those scars so that the swelling had a place to go and would not burst the meat on his arms. I've also lost a few friends in the business.
I spent a career doing hotline work but I never worked anything off of a helicopter. That first contact that the Lineman on the video made was to drain the static from the helicopter caused by the air movement over the aircraft body and blades through the air. The next contact that the Lineman made was to attach a lead from the aircraft to the hot phase to bring himself and the aircraft to the same potential as the phase that he was working. The video failed to show the wheelbarrow that the Lineman needed to carry his balls in!
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I’d like to review their breaker relay settings. Gotta be room for improvement.
And talk about bad luck. I think aftre the second hit Id just stay on the ground for awhile.
Guy gets hit by lightening twice:
Guy gets hit by lightening twice:
Being grounded means you became part of a circuit, in this context.
The higher the amperage the worse the result. Doesn't take much to prevent you from being able to let go, either.
It's crazy to me how many people have 40+ amp circuits in their house with a $5 non-GFI breaker on them. Not a single breaker in my box is non-GFI. An extra $1,500 well spent, in my opinion. Don't think a 20AMP can't get you -- people die all the time in bath-tubs and from sub 3 amp phone chargers coming out of non-GFI protected outlets.
Yeah, GFI can get annoying -- better to be annoyed than dead, though.
The higher the amperage the worse the result. Doesn't take much to prevent you from being able to let go, either.
It's crazy to me how many people have 40+ amp circuits in their house with a $5 non-GFI breaker on them. Not a single breaker in my box is non-GFI. An extra $1,500 well spent, in my opinion. Don't think a 20AMP can't get you -- people die all the time in bath-tubs and from sub 3 amp phone chargers coming out of non-GFI protected outlets.
Yeah, GFI can get annoying -- better to be annoyed than dead, though.
Thats when you know God has a beef with you.
Holy smokes… really? I thought that was pretty much bred out of people… and trained out. No electrical wires in bathtubs. Like since we were 3?
Well, I guess Darwin is catching up with this uneducated generation and population of retards! Yay! More phone cords in bathtubs folks! Let’s get these tards zapped out!
Sirhr
We should all be lucky enough to get hit by lightning
A buddy of mine was doing commercial electrical work in a factory working on really high voltage stuff. He was un a ladder and accidentally touched the wrong thing. He says the only thing that saved his life is that he contracted so hard he kicked the ladder over and his own weight pulled him off the wire.
I used to do tree pruning for Bartlett and was up in a bucket truck clearing power lines with a 6 ft long air powered circular saw. When it started snowing and I got too close to one line I could see the electrons start flowing between the saw and the line. Really weird feeling. I packed up and wen the fuck back to the house for the day.
Notice the burn spots on the driveway where the lightning went through him to the pavement. That guy badly needs to see either a regular priest or an exorcist, not sure which.
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Well they ya go. One of the 234,543 reasons why you hire a trained professional to do things you are obviously to stupid to do yourself.
I have had lighning hit things from 50 to 100 ish feet from me.
Burnt hair both times.
Niether was a direct hit on me.
Won't touch boat trailers or aluminum window frames in a storm ever again.
Wife saw it both times, what are the odds of that crap?
Burnt hair both times.
Niether was a direct hit on me.
Won't touch boat trailers or aluminum window frames in a storm ever again.
Wife saw it both times, what are the odds of that crap?
I was on a mountain-top in Northern B.C. when lightning struck the ground ~50 feet to my Right. By-Far was the loudest Crack/Boom whatever-you-wanna-call-it that I'd ever heard.
The ground was just "zott'ed" and we all (on bikes and quads) got the hell out of there FAST.
I shit you not, about 10 minutes prior to this happening, we were all enjoying the view and the 'great weather'. Systems sure change, in a hurry when you're way-up-high. The torrential deluge was really something, too.
The ground was just "zott'ed" and we all (on bikes and quads) got the hell out of there FAST.
I shit you not, about 10 minutes prior to this happening, we were all enjoying the view and the 'great weather'. Systems sure change, in a hurry when you're way-up-high. The torrential deluge was really something, too.
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Think of ground as 0 volts that acts as the reference point for electrical measurements (volts and amps). Many of the electrical systems in the U.S. use ground as the return point for current, as you have to have a completed circuit path for electricity to flow. When a fuse/breaker pops the circuit is interrupted and current no longer flows. An analogy is the flow of water thru a hose. Pressure difference (voltage) in the hose causes the water (current) to flow from high pressure to low. Current (water) flows from the high to the low voltage (0 volts i.e. ground)
The same thing happens with the human body. It acts as a fuse to the flow of electricity. Once you bridge your body from the "hot" (high) side of an electrical circuit to the ground, you are acting as a fuse or more appropriately, as a resistor. It only takes a small amount of current, around 500 milliamps (0.5 amps) or less across the path to the heart to kill a person (depends on a lot of factors). There are usually entrance and exit points on the body, if it isn't a really bad electrocution.
Usually people go to ground by bridging hot to ground. Current is what kills, and the current will usually flow from an appendage thru the heart and then ground thru another appendage. Current KILLS, not voltage. You can have a high voltage circuit, with a small amount of current and survive. High current can literally boil the blood and blow off body parts.
In storm situations, downed power lines don't spark in many cases as portrayed in the movies. Don't assume they are dead. We had a state trooper killed when he kick a downed catv line while walking with his wife after a storm. Turns out, the catv line got wrapped in a live power line blocks away. He really should have known better. Million and one stories I have heard of, or investigated while working for a power company.
The same thing happens with the human body. It acts as a fuse to the flow of electricity. Once you bridge your body from the "hot" (high) side of an electrical circuit to the ground, you are acting as a fuse or more appropriately, as a resistor. It only takes a small amount of current, around 500 milliamps (0.5 amps) or less across the path to the heart to kill a person (depends on a lot of factors). There are usually entrance and exit points on the body, if it isn't a really bad electrocution.
Usually people go to ground by bridging hot to ground. Current is what kills, and the current will usually flow from an appendage thru the heart and then ground thru another appendage. Current KILLS, not voltage. You can have a high voltage circuit, with a small amount of current and survive. High current can literally boil the blood and blow off body parts.
In storm situations, downed power lines don't spark in many cases as portrayed in the movies. Don't assume they are dead. We had a state trooper killed when he kick a downed catv line while walking with his wife after a storm. Turns out, the catv line got wrapped in a live power line blocks away. He really should have known better. Million and one stories I have heard of, or investigated while working for a power company.
So this is an ironic conversation, giving my previous answer, when in fact I'm an electrician that does industrial maintenance, I just take for granted everyone knows what an electical ground is.
Get the combo ground fault/arc fault breaker. About $50 each. Only problem is sometimes arc-fault trip with shop-vacs (motors create arcs).
Not all electric shock kills , people use it to bust a nut sometimes .........
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