Shocked by high voltage! whats your volts?

[things]

I got shocked by a disposable camera, roughly 10kv I think

Can disposable camera's even ouput 10kv, because all the ones i see only have a cap with a voltage rating no higher than 400v

 

[Souper man]

Lol i was totally guessing
hurt though

 

[Hero999]

Can disposable camera's even ouput 10kv, because all the ones i see only have a cap with a voltage rating no higher than 400v

The small trigger transformer puts out a 6kV trigger pulse but it's only a tiny amount of energy.

 

[NewBie/Jarhead]

12,500VAC from a feeder, before it is stepped down for neighborhood use.

I have multiple exit wounds, and here is a skin-graph, and where the doctors were amazed when the muscles regenerated, since they were carbonized and gone, down to 1/2" from the leg bone- it used to look like a big crater in my leg. I was not supposed to walk again, and was a 9 year old climbing a big tall cedar tree, and came in contact with the feeder lines. This is was 30 years ago, and the scar has shrunk considerably, as well as most of the muscle is back:

**broken link removed**

 

[Oznog]

When I was a little kid I was talking apart an old laser videodisk player- the big ones with a huge he-ne laser tube inside.

I was trying to measure the voltage on a little tiny wall-wart powered oscilloscope with a metal faceplate. The concern here is that such a device isn't grounded so any mistake were you hook the probe's GND up to a high voltage won't short out and make the lead explode, it'll just connect that voltage to the case.

Well I had one hand on the player's case somewhere and tried to adjust the scope with the other. BAM! I was thrown back by the muscle contractions. My back smacked into the desk (I was working on the floor). Ouch. My heart was doing flip-flops for a minute. I just lay there.

That was later shown to be 800VAC... I took it arm-to-arm too. Yeah, lucky to be alive and all. If I'd been in a position where the contractions closed my muscle on the conductors I'd have been history.

 

[Hero999]

12,500VAC from a feeder, before it is stepped down for neighborhood use.

I have multiple exit wounds, and here is a skin-graph, and where the doctors were amazed when the muscles regenerated, since they were carbonized and gone, down to 1/2" from the leg bone- it used to look like a big crater in my leg. I was not supposed to walk again, and was a 9 year old climbing a big tall cedar tree, and came in contact with the feeder lines. This is was 30 years ago, and the scar has shrunk considerably, as well as most of the muscle is back:

That looks nasty.

Did the initial shock hurt you or did you immediately become unconscious?

How long did it take to heal?

 

[NewBie/Jarhead]

Actually, I was clinically dead for 4 1/2 minutes, I was in an oxygen tent for months, and I have multiple entry and exit wounds.

Hurt? Yes, quite powerful.

The graphs themselves were pretty much healed in a year, much of which I spent in a wheelchair, but hobbled around on crutches when folks were not watching, I hated that chair with a passion. It took about four years before I could get around somewhat "normally". It took about 12 years before my strength was roughly equal between my two legs, before that, one was always weaker. During this time I worked my way to walking 10 miles, then worked my way up to running 10 miles. So I guess healing is a relative term.

The exit wound initially was just black carbon (on the various exit wounds), and the areas were quite shrunken. Over two months, in surgery, they removed the carbon, then they did skin graphs on ten sites on my body, taking the skin from other areas on my body.

Just so mother's tales don't progress, voltages as low as 24V have killed wet truckers.

One should be careful when shocked. AC has more of a tendency to upset the heart's patterns, where DC tends to make the heart stand still. One dangerous thing that has killed a number of technicians, is a small shock, which set up a "tremor" in the heart that is out of sync, and killed them hours or a day later. It is recommended that if you are shocked, one should go to the hospital to have your heart checked out.

The path that the current travels is important. Back in the days when engineers and technicians used to work on equipment that could shock them, the one hand rule was practiced and preached like gospel. ESD straps and such can endanger a technician working around high voltage, especially since they tend to put them on the hand that they don't work with, and/or wear heal straps. Both cases can be quite dangerous, due to the path going thru the heart.

Currents as low as 35mA can mess up the human heart. Some associations use 5mA.
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2007/06/6330100t2.pdf

Some use 50mA, notice the difference for AC and DC:
https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/JackHsu.shtml

More information on the subject here:
**broken link removed**

BTW, other kids in the tree though I was hit by lighting, as there was a loud bang, and flash, before I fell 30 ft to the ground, basically dead.

 

[things]

lightning you must have been pretty unlucky

 

[neoandrewson]

Actually, I was clinically dead for 4 1/2 minutes, I was in an oxygen tent for months, and I have multiple entry and exit wounds.

BTW, other kids in the tree though I was hit by lighting, as there was a loud bang, and flash, before I fell 30 ft to the ground, basically dead.

man... did you apply for guiness book of world record??? you should be really lucky to survive such a nasty accident and recover... i've never seen or heard of people surviving and recovering such a nasty accident!!!!

 

[Marks256]

Wow, NewBie/Jarhead....

 

[Optikon]

Newbie/jarhead, I think you win the thread for the worst shocking experience! It's truly amazing you survived to tell the tale. You should be an advocate for power line safety for school children.

The human body has an astonishing ability to heal itself.

 

[Hero999]

Just so mother's tales don't progress, voltages as low as 24V have killed wet truckers.

I can just about believe someone being killed from 24VAC (the IEEE regulations state that the maximum voltage for SELV is 25VAC or 60VDC) but not 24VDC. I have had shocks from 28VDC but that was only because I had cuts my hands and my fingers were damp even so it was just a tingle where the current entered and exited my body. I suppose if someone has a pacemaker 24VDC might kill them as it might interfere with it causing it to stop working.