My brother, circa 1965, was working on a six volt Chevrolet.

His ring got between the battery terminal and ground. (Don't ask me
how.)

He ended up with a destroyed ring and a finger with a very painful burn
around it.

No permanent damage but come to think about it he's a little weird even
today. Hmmm.... but isn't everybody weird but you and me and I sometimes
wonder about...

================

This is really not low voltage high current but an event that sticks in
my mind as potentially fatal.

I had a female student in one of my community college electronics class.
The electronic bench where she was working had a 8 foot strip of outlets
on one of the typical 1970s surface mount plug strips. She had plugged
in some instrument but in retrospect she hadn't pushed the plug in
completely, leaving a small amount of the metal of the plug exposed.

Around her waist she had a silver colored metal belt with a hanging end
with a washer shaped end on it. It looked to me like a dog collar.

She bent over the bench to adjust something and the metal end of her belt
went across the metal prongs of the plug.

RESULT = lots of sparks, a loud scream, a partially melted end to the
belt and a much wiser and more careful student. (And a very relieved
instructor, thankful that it hit BOTH prongs and not just one while she
was holding touching a grounded instrument case.

Yes, we then moved all the plug strips on the benches where they were
mounted to the bottom edge of the bench and removed them from other
benches where there were adequate outlets on the plug strip on the front
of the shelf along the back of the bench.

Paul Burridge wrote:

Hi all,

Anyone got any high-current/low-voltage horror stories they'd care to
share? You know; where your messin' about with a car battery or
something like that and forget to take your watch off or whatever.

p.
--

"What is now proved was once only imagin'd." - William Blake, 1793.

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On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 15:12:54 GMT, DO NOT REPLY to this ADDRESS hath writ:
My brother, circa 1965, was working on a six volt Chevrolet.

His ring got between the battery terminal and ground. (Don't ask me
how.)

He ended up with a destroyed ring and a finger with a very painful burn
around it.

No permanent damage but come to think about it he's a little weird even
today. Hmmm.... but isn't everybody weird but you and me and I sometimes
wonder about...

My dad (the first W3DHJ) told me an almost identical story.

It was in the late 20's. He was working on _his_ dad's Ford utility
truck. (Grandpa owned a dairy in Big Bear, Calif.) Six volts here, too.
The truck was parked in the driveway -- just outside the garage.
When my dad caught his ring between the positive terminal and the truck
frame, my Grandpa picked him up bodily -- ran him over to the rain barrel
at the corner of the garage -- and stuffed my dad's entire left arm (and
much of his upper torso) into the barrel.

( *The worst* thing you could do in a situation like that is try to _pull_
the ring off.)

My dad was a 90-day wonder in WW II. He then spent 25+ years in the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers (we traveled the planet....) Most of his
duty assignments were as (Deputy) Post Engineer -- with the added
responsibity as Post Safety Officer. I always knew him to be
evangelically anal about safety. I'm sure that incident with the old
Ford truck had a wee bit to do with it.

73
Jonesy
--
| Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
| Gunnison, Colorado | @ | Jonesy | OS/2 __
| 7,703' -- 2,345m | config.com | DM68mn SK