How am I not dead?

[WoodChuckDad]

I have been outside installing a trailer wiring harness for my Dodge Ram. 2004 1500. It came with a 4 pin so I bought the conversion adapter to 7 blade and I was running the brake wire and the hot wire. It's almost 90 degrees so I'm sweaty. I was under the hood putting in the 40 amp circuit breaker and wiring that in to the positive battery terminal I am using a 10 mm wrench...not a ratchet so it was taking a long time and I noticed that my left arm was tingling....I lifted up my arm to realize that for 30 seconds to a minute I had been leaning my left forearm on the negative and with the the left hand was touching the positive terminal to hold it steady while I worked the wrench with the right hand. I told my wife keep an eye on me for the rest of the day, in case I fall out. I should buy a lottery ticket today. I'm feeling lucky.

 

[Rustyiron]

I told my wife keep an eye on me for the rest of the day. I'm feeling lucky.

Hey Sparkey, she better keep an eye on you tonight you might still be energized:laughing:
Glad your OK!

 

[Threepoint]

I've had the exact same thing happen. The path of the current was just the thin layer of saltwater on the surface of your skin. That for sure will give you a tingle, more like a prolonged sting in my case. But it's not enough to paralyze muscles or disrupt heart rhythm.

When I was much younger, I watched an old electrician repeatedly test household circuits for live 120v current. He bridged the hot and neutral between his thumb and index finger. "Yep, that one's hot!" He explained that the current took the easiest path, so didn't even try to ground through the body. Never tried it myself, but made sense to me. :laughing:

 

[CalG]

12V is not enough to penetrate your skin "Control wiring" cuts off at 48 V which is what the safety guys feel your "personal insulation equipment" (skin) should be good for.

As far as the tingle goes, have you ever "taste tested" a dry cell battery?

 

[compact]

Its pretty hard to hurt yourself with 12V unless you short metal on a battery or starter post.

 

[sd455dan]

Its pretty hard to hurt yourself with 12V unless you short metal on a battery or starter post.

Yeah- like shorting a wedding ring across the + starter lug to a ground, Heard a story about a local guy who lost everything above the ring... After getting married I always removed my ring when working around starters and solenoids- that story stuck with me.

 

[buickanddeere]

Because here was not enough milliamperes traveling through your heart to either stop it or to cause arrhythmia.

 

[k0ua]

12V is not enough to penetrate your skin "Control wiring" cuts off at 48 V which is what the safety guys feel your "personal insulation equipment" (skin) should be good for.

As far as the tingle goes, have you ever "taste tested" a dry cell battery?

12 volts is pretty safe unless you made cuts in your skin and inserted probes into your "meat". I used to work around 48 volts and have gotten across it many times. No big deal, but that is about the most you would want to do, and there is some danger there. I have "taste tested" many 9 volt batteries, and a good fresh one in about all you would want to put across your tongue. It smarts some.

The biggest danger from working around batteries is getting burned from a piece a metal across the terminals. They can turn a wrench white hot pretty quick. Especially a 48 volt Central office battery pack capable of delivery thousands of amperes at 48 Volts. If you do the math, that is a bunch of watts.

 

[Threepoint]

[snip]

But then, getting 120v from one hand to the other should be fatal, but it isn't always. Ask me how I know!

When I was 11, I and an older buddy were standing in my dad's basement shop trying to find what was wrong with an old table lamp. I forgot it was plugged in and grabbed the hot wire, completing the circuit up my arm, down through me and my sneakers to the damp concrete floor. I remember being frozen in place, unable to move a muscle until my buddy saw what was happening. He reached up and unplugged the lamp. Thanks no doubt to him, I survived. As did the memory, quite vividly, to this day. :laughing:

 

[Deere Dude]

I was about 13-14 and my cousin was a year or two old. My dad and his dad were getting worms out of the ground sticking a 120v probe into the ground. It worked great.

My cousin said we should run up and grab the probe for a second to get a tingle. I was to hold his hand and he was to grab the probe. We did that, only I let his hand go a split second before he grabbed the thing. It floored him like he was an all star wrestler getting pounded to the mat. He just flopped on the ground and my dad unplugged the prob.

I don't know what the voltage was, 12v or 110v but I took a mental note from that experience.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I appreciate all the explanations...and the stories. I've had more than my share of previous adventures with electricity. While installing vinyl siding, I drove a nail thru the wall into the main breaker. There was a very loud pop. I went inside and saw where the nail had gone thru, touched one of the wires at the top and melted. I had my electrician come and fix it. When I was a kid, I took my mom's car keys and stuck them in the electric socket in the wall. My brother kicked me off of it....I was buzzing and screaming. We had a lightbulb blow out in the dryer. When I grabbed the bulb to remove it, it broke in my hands and I got zapped. That burned the skin on my hand. I had a physical scheduled for the next day and asked the doctor about it. He said I should have come to the doctor....they would have observed me for several hours....But since I didn't die overnight, it was all good. I saw a guy get hit with 220 in the army. Another member of my unit had just read about what to do so he basically snatched him off the ladder. They both had minor burns. The guy who had gotten hit was very reserved and struggled with physical fitness tests before the accident. About a week afterwards we were running and he was laughing. It no longer felt difficult to him. He also was no longer shy....became a ladies man...Some of my friends thought it just gave him a new perspective on life. I think the electricity running thru his brain changed him.

 

[k0ua]

The close-est I ever came to real danger was when I reached into an old Television set to change out one of the tubes in the tuner. I was a TV tech, and knew enough to keep one hand in my pocket. But some how I get on the 330 volt DC line on one of the feed thru's on the tuner and my arm was touching the ground side of the tuner. I got zapped really big time. Far worse than sticking your keys in a 120 volt outlet. I had to sit down for a while even though the path was from fingers to the side of the same arm and I did not have a path thru my heart. That would have been probably a death sentence. I have never forgotten that one.

 

[dalroo]

While we are telling stories - a high school buddy of mine invited us to his parent's cabin at the lake. When they left from visits, they would unscrew the main fuse - the old threaded glass kind. We showed up and before even unloading cars went swimming for an hour or so. After getting out of lake, my buddy asked me to go screw in the fuse. I was still dripping wet, barefoot, and playing electrician. I remember the shock, but don't know how I let go. I do know that I was on the floor all the way across the room when I stopped. I learned a valuable lesson that day that has stuck with me now for nearly 35 years.

 

[Howling]

Many years ago, working in a control cabinet I leaned in to an open frame motor starter. Three legs of 480 on my shoulder while holding grounded line in that hand. It blew me right out of the cabinet. I was running around all charged up for the rest of the day.

I design and build with touch safe components these days. Once is enough.

 

[newbury]

The first time is often very memorable.
I had to be about 4 or 5, before first grade. Playing around by my parents bed I reached up and grabbed a poorly insulated plug in an outlet. I can still vividly remember seeing the fright in my mothers eyes as I started spasms, luckily yanking the plug out of the wall.

I've had a healthy respect for electricity ever since.