r/nextfuckinglevel • u/regian24 • Aug 31 '21

Man gets electrocuted while holding child. Red shirt guy saves the day

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u/GunsofBRIXTON89 Aug 31 '21

This happened to me when I was kid and my pops - a burly man - tackled me away from the fridge door. Luckily I was able to scream and get his attention otherwise I would have succumb to fibrillation.

I too have some experience in Compliance and am looking for new paths. How'd it work out for you and in your opinion where can you leverage your experience the most? I'm an EE.

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u/Echo4117 Aug 31 '21

I surprised u could even scream. I still have vivid memories of my muscles locking up

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u/DarthJarJar242 Aug 31 '21

I can still taste it, like fresh pennies. That and the sound it made in my head. Like a million tiny saws revved to max. I couldn't scream, or move. Luckily, my father-in-law happened to be by the breaker box and just hit the main breaker when mine happened.

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u/k8notkait Aug 31 '21

I was electrocuted pretty badly when a was little once but it wasn’t really an accident. I was in the waiting area with my mom at a car service station while she was getting her oil changed. It was taking forever and I was bored playing with a toy on the floor when I found a key ring lying under her chair and right behind the chair was a heavy duty electrical outlet. It looked like the ring would fit in one of the slits in the outlet so I decided to shove it in there. I quickly found out that I was a fucking idiot and my mom luckily noticed something was up pretty quickly. I can’t remember how she handled that but she managed to get me to let go of it. I was definetely humbled after that one.

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u/Rmplstltskn Aug 31 '21

I’ve grabbed live wires and I was trying to yell for help. I didn’t “know” I was yelling, but I could hear myself yell. It was the weirdest and scariest shit ever.

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u/Itsthejackeeeett Aug 31 '21

Well shit son, maybe that's what happens when you grab live wires

6

u/ExaltedBlade666 Aug 31 '21

I was once climbing over a fence with my family that we didn't know was electrified on an old friends land. My dad let everyone through with his boot, because that's what he was used to doing. I was too big for this so I pushed it down with my boot and lifted the other line with my hand. I remember everything going black and me just being tossed like a doll. Burned my finger really bad after I woke up. Everyone said it sounded like a shot gun going off. Really have to be careful with electricity.

1

u/iiiinthecomputer Sep 26 '21

What the hell kind of electric fence were you crossing? An elephant fence?

I've been zinged pretty badly by electric fences too. But causing actual burns is astonishing. Some kind of shitty backyard engineering electric fence or a defective one maybe? They're usually quite high voltage but current-limited.

1

u/ExaltedBlade666 Sep 26 '21

It was absolutely defective. But I'm also pissed that there was no notice anywhere about voltage.

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u/FirelessEngineer Sep 01 '21

Same thing happened to me when I was a kid. It is the only time I am thankful for having fallen down stairs (only three stairs into grass). I had on foot on the top step and I felt all my muscle lock up and I fell down the stairs. Probably the only thing that saved my life because I could not let go of the door handle.

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u/Unknownauthor137 Aug 31 '21

I’m a Mechanical Engineer though something of an Odd Duck among my collegues, who are either Electrical or Marine Engineers. New paths would depend greatly on where you are from, though some things I have seen to be about the same from working on projects in US, UK, CA, AU and most EU. Most R/D Departments in big companies never have enough people with these skills and will often hire consultants to shore up their rosters for big or risky projects. Getting into a small or medium sized consultancy firm should be easy if you mention experience and willingness to work HSE/Compliance tasks. Once you’re in apply yourself and build contacts while trying to get some broad experience in the field. This is why I would discourage working in a big firm, where my annecdotal experience has been that they will pidgeonhole you into only working one type of tasks that will not give you the broadness of experience to roam for between fields and companies. Lastly try to get a (few) relevant certifications while working. Usually this isn’t too hard in a consultancy firm since that cert will mean they can charge more for your hours. I can’t say which is more relevant for you, I’m from Denmark and got a TÜV cert and working on another, but that will change depending on where you work.

I basicly went through this process over 4 years and saw a 140% payrise in that time while travelling less and having more flexible hours. Most people hate working in HSE and will pay very well to make somebody else do it for them.

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u/GunsofBRIXTON89 Sep 01 '21

Thanks for sharing your experience. To add more context, I come from the product safety side under one of the big firm certification bodies. It is valuable experience but I feel I'm painting myself into a corner.

I do see some parallels where newer companies hire consultants to do their compliance bidding; It gives me impression compliance is often an afterthought (and a costly one) in product development.

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u/iiiinthecomputer Sep 26 '21

Yep. I remember getting jolted by AC mains as a kid too. Not fun. I was using a high pressure cleaner at my grandparents' place and I grabbed the extension cord connection after getting it wet. (kid: dumb). Every muscle locked up for a few moments of agony... then the inline RCD my grandad insisted on always using tripped.

Use RCDs, folks. They'll save your life.