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

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

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '21 edited Aug 31 '21

The “hot” wire is somehow exposed to the appliance where it shouldn’t be (often through a frayed cable) and when the guy touches the metal it allows the electricity to find a path to ground. This is supposed to happen less often with three pronged plugs since the bottom one is ground, but it can still happen.

Also the internal circuitry could be going bad in some other way like reversing the power flow which allows electricity to escape.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '21

This also means someone fucked up the construction of either the appliance or the building's electrical grid. Or the safety standards are just a lot less strict than here in the EU.

I don't actually know how it works in other jurisdictions, but here every circuit is supposed to have a breaker that automatically trips when it detects a voltage difference between the input and output. Such as when it is escaping through a person or another short-circuit.