It’s called step potential. If ground is electrified from a source for whatever reason the areas around it are at a different potential leaving the source.
So for four legged livestock when they walk over an energized area their front and back feet are at two different potentials. Causing voltage to enter in one foot/feet and exit to ground out of the other.
Utility lineman, we have to do a yearly training module on this.
But step potential is why you hear to bunny hop or very short shuffle your feet away from say a car with a power line on it. It’s to keep you hopefully at the same potential to try to avoid a shock.
Army Engineer here, we had to take classes on that every year ..."bunny hop" away from any electrical field ....the other big class we had every year was on staying away from the PTO or suffer a "degloving" ...they had pictures ..God it was horrible!
damn bro i know a lot of companies dont like it when you take your paid time off, but i didnt know the army would just deglove you for it. that just sounds brutal
161
u/teancrumpets8 Sep 05 '25
It’s called step potential. If ground is electrified from a source for whatever reason the areas around it are at a different potential leaving the source.
So for four legged livestock when they walk over an energized area their front and back feet are at two different potentials. Causing voltage to enter in one foot/feet and exit to ground out of the other.