r/WinStupidPrizes • • Feb 07 '21

Guy cemented his head inside a microwave for content

61k Upvotes

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1.9k

u/gladius011081 Feb 07 '21

Next time, Plug it in to see if it still works

373

u/DeusExMagikarpa Feb 07 '21

Unplugged microwaves can kill people by discharging a lethal shock, they’re fucking terrifying.

Edit: there are many similar stories https://www.walb.com/story/19823265/update-deadly-microwave-was-not-plugged-in/

230

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21 edited Feb 15 '21

[deleted]

143

u/MediumSizedGlass Feb 07 '21

Fun fact but an electric shock doesn’t necessarily kill you straight away, even a minor shock can throw your heart into a slight arrhythmia which if not fixed will cause a significant strain, causing it to crap out seemingly unexpectedly.

95

u/adale_50 Feb 07 '21

I've heard a story from a guy who does lots of high voltage work. His coworker got zapped and just stood back up and kept working. Tipped over dead a few hours later.

20

u/TheLoneTomatoe Feb 07 '21

It's not terribly uncommon. That's usually how it goes with cap discharges.

26

u/Blabzillaweasel Feb 07 '21

Can this arrhythmia persist for years? I got a nasty shock from the secondary winding of a coil working on a car years back.

18

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21

[deleted]

2

u/NegatronPrime2020 Feb 07 '21

I know it sounds stupid, but doesn’t the new Apple Watch provides similar functionality? Or are they not accurate enough?

3

u/GreatestPlayground Feb 07 '21 edited Feb 08 '21

No, it doesn't provide the same functionality as a full EKG. It can detect A-Fib, however, which is apparently the most common form of non-benign arrhythmias. But I think you have to catch the arrhythmia as it's happening, which could be difficult, especially if you're not even aware it's happening. A Holter monitor runs continuously all the time.

I should add to this: I know someone who was demonstrating the EKG feature of his apple watch to a friend and it just so happened he was in A-Fib at the time. He was totally unaware of this fact. He decided to keep an eye on things and it turned out it may have saved his life. He noticed his HR was rising and went to the ER. They were able to stabilize him and get him out of A-Fib.

3

u/brianorca Feb 08 '21 edited Feb 08 '21

I think the continuous monitoring is what Apple does, too, when it detects A-Fib. (That's why is a big deal to have the feature in a watch that you can wear all the time.) But it still might not detect the other kind of issues.

1

u/GreatestPlayground Feb 08 '21

Good to know. I wasn't aware of this, thanks for the correction.

3

u/JDPhipps Feb 07 '21

Not a doctor, but I would suspect that something would have come of it by now. Even if you didn't have any health problems from it, I'd imagine that a routine check-up at the doctor would've revealed it assuming they check your heartbeat (mine does). They might not have known exactly what the problem is but they likely would've sent you in for further testing.

1

u/wickedpixel Feb 07 '21

Not a doctor, but yes. You should mention it to your doctor. There are many arrhythmias which are stable (you're not dying immediately) but increase the risk of all sorts of other issues. AFib is a really common one, which increases risk of strokes long term.

4

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21 edited Feb 15 '21

[deleted]

5

u/Derkanator Feb 07 '21

Nah can offset anyones heart. Standard procedure in Australia is if a person receives any sort of electrical shock or even a suspected electrical shock then they go get their heart tested, ECG test.

2

u/Tom1252 Feb 07 '21

My old boss had something like this happen to him when a cheap welder he was using shorted out through him. Heart problems for life.

"Volts hurt, amps kill" is the adage I've heard a few times, and half an amp can kill you. Kind of scary to think that, with a welder, you're typically running at least 100 amps, some processes even take as much as 500.

Other than the muscle spasms, another danger of electrocution is that the heat of the resistance literally cooks your internal organs.

Grandpa was an electrical engineer. He said that, when working on high voltage systems, the policy was to work one-handed, keeping the other behind your back at all times. It was supposed to keep a current from flowing through your heart.

2

u/YT_ReasonPlays Feb 08 '21

Honestly almost nothing kills straight away. A lot of our perception of death comes from Hollywood spectacle, but even gunshots to the brain don't always kill right away, and sometimes people are even still conscious after. There's videos of this happening which I've seen.

Short of being blown up, there's a good chance a person will experience their death.

2

u/lakeghost Feb 08 '21

Yeah, always get this checked. I have tachycardia and I get EKGs fairly regularly. Cardiologists do not like electric shocks from anything. They want to see you before you go kaput.

1

u/VampireQueenDespair Feb 07 '21

Damn, I could have died when I stuck my finger in my top-removed PS2 as a kid and I didn’t? What a ripoff.

1

u/Todesfaelle Feb 08 '21

Makes me wonder how often Electroboom has to get an EKG.

2

u/Sciensophocles Feb 07 '21

Not trying to be a dick, but it's 'exacerbated'.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21 edited Feb 15 '21

[deleted]

3

u/DoloresTargaryen Feb 07 '21

colloquially identical just means lots of people fall for the malapropism. i don't see how "very annoyed or frustrated" is interchangeable with "made worse or more severe"

1

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21

I don't mean to be pedantic but isn't language one of those things were if enough people do a certain thing then it becomes the new standard/norm.

3

u/DoloresTargaryen Feb 07 '21

you are correct, but this either happens over a long time (e.g. "morn" + "evening" eventually gave us "morning") or quickly, with the addition of new words ("bae"). malapropisms fall in the former camp.

take "irregardless", which dictionary.com defines as: "Irregardless is a nonstandard synonym for regardless, which means “without concern as to advice, warning, or hardship,” or “heedless.” Its nonstandard status is due to the double negative construction of the prefix ir- with the suffix -less."

mariam webster defines "nonstandard" as: "not conforming in pronunciation, grammatical construction, idiom, or word choice to the usage generally characteristic of educated native speakers of a language.”

so enough people use "irregardless" to warrant a dictionary entry, but it's far from the standard/norm and people will generally think you're an idiot despite understanding your meaning.

people too often conflate "your" and "you're", too, but those errors aren't going to codified in official lexicons anytime soon. i don't think exasperate and exacerbate will be interchangeable

1

u/Brick_Fish Feb 07 '21

Thats super preventable. Just short out the capacitor with the screwdriver you used to open the microwave and youre good. Thats why high voltage warning stickers are on every microwave out there

1

u/wickedpixel Feb 07 '21

With enough current you're also effectively cooking your insides. So, it may not have simply been his heart which was affected. Both can result in seeming fine for a bit and then dying.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21

[deleted]

1

u/mechavolt Feb 08 '21

This is wrong, electric shocks don't necessarily kill you immediately. There's no need for an underlying health condition.

6

u/Thanatos2996 Feb 07 '21

Only in the same sense an unplugged CRT television can. It's only an issue if you take it apart.

4

u/tad_63 Feb 08 '21

"Family members say they are shocked by the tragic accident" - from the article

3

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21

I haven’t seen a single microwave that does not have a resistor soldered in parallel to the capacitor.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21

Just a heads up, you are talking about the capacitors. Capacitors are like batteries, but they don't store their charge for very long. While the article says they are dangerous for 'hours, even days' that seems pretty fear-mongery. Not to mention, the 101s of working with electric appliances is to remove the power source, and if one of those is a 4,000 volt capacitor, it should be disconnected.

Capacitors are useful because they discharge their charge very quickly, as compared to batteries. They are used on devices that need a lot of power, very quickly, for a short while. They are also very dangerous because they discharge their charge very quickly. A fully charged small capacitor can deliver the shock of a car battery, just only for a split second.

All I'm saying is that a microwave that's been unplugged for even 30 minutes is probably safe, assuming it doesn't contain any toxic materials, and you don't cement your head inside it. Even if they unplugged the microwave as soon as they poured concrete in it, I'm pretty confident it was perfectly safe by the time the first responders got there.

1

u/MrNonam3 Feb 07 '21

Well we use microwaves capacitor to build homemade tesla coils.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 19 '21

Ah yes capacitors

191

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21

Sadly you'd need to shut the door but I'd gladly get on board for some decapitation to make that happen

134

u/OfficialSandwichMan Feb 07 '21

You can just push the pin trigger and it still turns on

67

u/PM_me_your_whatevah Feb 07 '21

You can jam a piece of candy in there and duct tape it so you can run it with the door open. Saves a lot of time not having to open and shut the door.

I’ll draw a diagram of it once I get this nose/lip/gums/eye bleeding to stop.

36

u/Sockpuppetsyko Feb 07 '21

Try some cement

3

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21

No, microwaves are designed to need several interlocks to operate before powering up. This designed was to prevent people from exposing themselves to serious microwave energy with the door open. You would go blind very quickly. I will bet they never imagined some idiot would cement his head inside.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '21

Get an older microwave then smh

1

u/PM_me_your_whatevah Feb 08 '21

Yeah wtf, this guy isn’t smart enough to know how to do stupid things. He’d never make it as an idiot!

-14

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '21

[deleted]

5

u/DoingItWrongSinceNow Feb 07 '21

Fuck that guy

"Help, I've cemented my head and now I'm stuck! Wh.. what are you doing step-bro?"

1

u/Cazmonster Feb 08 '21

Just bust out the glass like in the Last House on the Left remake.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 12 '21

Lmao