The unofficial guide to electrocution (and how to avoid it)

[Music] this is the unofficial guide to electrocution because by understanding the science behind electrocution you can make informed decisions as to your working practices and how you approach some scenarios there's a lot more information in the description down below including anything i missed but most importantly of all demonstrations in the form of links to videos where i'll provide information about what you're about to watch in those videos i shall also warn you if the outcome was not known some of them may be grim so let's start by discussing what an electric shock is when people bridge two electrical connections the voltage difference current will flow through their body the connection points are usually live connections which could actually be unexpected live objects it could be pipes it could be just exposed random metal work that turns out to be live but it's usually the other point reference is the ambient ground plane around you that ambient ground the effect the shock will have depends on how much current flows but it usually causes pain and muscle contraction this is because the brain normally communicates with your muscles by electrical signals and likewise when you touch things the nerves send signal electrical signals back up to your brain at low current of just a few milliamps it will cause significant pain through stimulating those nerves but it won't necessarily affect the control of your muscles and i would say that probably accounts for 99.99 of electric shocks the ones where someone's working something they go ow and they snatch their hands out it's it doesn't take much current to cause quite a notable stinging sensation in your finger but as the current increases you lose control of your muscles and as is often described in fatal electrocutions the hands grip uncontrollably onto things and it may actually prevent you from escaping from the thing you've touched the mechanism behind that is that because the electrical current is now overriding the signal from your brain significantly those people that say oh if i would get electrocuted i would just force myself to let go sometimes you can actually if if muscles are still operating you can actually drop away but in reality you have no control over the contraction of those muscles in your hand so what actually happens is the current flow stimulates the muscles that are for closing your hand but it also stimulates the muscles for opening the hands it stimulates them all and the winners in that fight are the ones that close your hand because they're the strongest because your hands are designed for gripping so your hands close if the current's flowing up your arm it will cause your arm to go up to the chest the reason for that is because your arms are designed for lifting against gravity as opposed to pushing down you do push down a fair amount in in normal daily life but most of the work is actually lifting up so that's the strongest muscles strongest muscles win in this tug of war and your arms go up to your chest your head will kick back your arms uh have gone up to your chest the body the core of your body and your legs will go rigid because that's the normal stance the muscles are all balanced against gravity and you will go up in your tiptoes because that's the strongest muscles in your feet and at that point you'll usually fall backwards this is a saving grace for some people because if they've actually come into contact with wires if current's flowing to the ground uh falling back actually breaks the connection if it doesn't if the wires are loose and they fall them down to the ground it's a different thing it's not pleasant the other thing that happens uh with that current because it's so completely uncontrolled it's not uncommon for significant electric shocks to cause really significant muscle damage even a modest electric shock can it might seem you're over it but a few days later you'll get sort of that gym workout pain in your muscles they'll really hurt because they've been stressed quite significantly but during a shock a high level shock it can actually break bones as well because if you're fairly muscular it puts all your muscles against each other uncontrollably at maximum strength and it's not uncommon for people who get a hand to hand shock to actually break their both their shoulder bones the other thing that can happen is of course being thrown into the air it's not the electricity that's throwing you if you're crouching down to any level at all the current flow through your body will make your legs go rigidly straight but completely with massive uncontrolled force the muscles will just be all be simultaneously driven maximum power far beyond the point that you could normally control them and that's what actually tends to throw people into the air the two i mean those things are bad enough but the two really undesirable bits the bits that cause death are your heart which every kind of knows about but also your diaphragm let's start with the heart the heart is a an organ composed larger than muscle and it's got lots of sections and they all beat in sync to actually pump blood around the body it's quite a resilient thing the heart when the current flows through two situations can occur well three situations if it was very low current it might not affect it at all if it's medium current it might cause partial contraction of the heart which is not good because it can knock out of sync a kind of bad but kind of a better case scenario i believe is uh when enough current flows it causes the whole heart to contract at once the chances are that it will regain its beat afterwards if the current path is broken because uh the heart is actually surprisingly resilient it's very capable of re-synchronizing the diaphragm is an extremely unpleasant aspect of electrocution the diaphragm is below your lungs and it normally it's muscles that actually move up and down and it makes your lungs inflate and deflate in the event of a significant flow of current through the diaphragm it locks in an intermediate position and this means that people can't scream while they're being electrocuted now if you've seen electrocution in the movies you know what the movies tend to exaggerate things and you might think that's what electrocution actually looks like so that'll be people thrashing about and sparks and flames and buzzing and the lights all dipping in reality that does not happen the majority of significant electrocutions are virtually silent you won't get any clue it's often said that people who have been next to people who were electrocuted said all they heard was like they were working and they heard them go oh just a groaning noise and what that was was the sudden current through the body caused their lungs to just basically go into a mid-position state and they are probably wanting to scream but they couldn't move they couldn't breathe they couldn't force that air out to make the scream so it tends to be absolutely silent and the first clues of working next to someone who's been electrocuted are you look at them because they've not they don't answer a question you say something to them and you suddenly realize that they're just locked in a fixed state on a piece of equipment in that instance uh obviously you need to break the circuit as quickly as possible um and then traditionally you know there's that thing about get a big piece of wood and leave them off or hit them with a big stick or something like that in reality for technical people like us uh you immediately assess the situation it could be as simple as flicking a switch to kill the power if power is coming from another source to an isolated piece of equipment this is just an increasing issue with modern electrical training circuits being crossed you can literally you can kick them off but keep in mind that if someone's gripping on under full force of a current flowing through the body that the muscles will be much stronger uh gripping much stronger than maybe you could get them off it depends how they're actually locked into something uh in these instances uh you could try and kick them off you if they're stuck to a wire you can see something you could cut it with a pair of snips you could short something out anything to basically blow a fuse or or break that connection to get them off and this is where uh you might find they just dropped the ground then they're like they they're they're fully conscious and they're obviously extremely agitated and and you at that point i would recommend that you know you get medical attention even if you get a shock yourself of that similar thing that really an odd tingle's not bad but if you've got a real wump one that we really feel massive current flow through your body or it knocks you out seek medical attention and here's what will happen it's it's not really intrusive at all the paramedics will turn up they will basically connect you to an ecg unit defibrillator is really it's all one combined unit these days i think and it will simply monitor your heartbeat they'll probably put the the blood pressure monitor on your arm and maybe a blood oxymeter on your finger and they'll just basically monitor you monitor you but in most instances if you've just picked yourself up off the floor you have survived and at this point it's worth seeing that there are organizations uh masquerading as safety organizations that scaremonger about electrocution and imply that you're going to die in reality electrocution is so rare electrocution is where someone actually dies it's electric execution but fatal electric shocks electrocution are so rare that you almost certainly make headlines in a newspaper or tv if you dive from electric shock you're more likely to die if you're a maintenance guy traveling and working on live electrical equipment to troubleshoot it on a daily basis day in day out the chances are you're going to your chances of dying on a car crash or a van crash are much higher than actually being electrocuted but don't get sloppy about it as you already know if you've had an electric shock it's not a pleasant experience in the first place but suppose you come in a situation that you've just uh discovered someone who's lying on the floor or they're still in the state of being electrocuted and you break the circuit and they're lying the floor unconscious traditionally the procedure was used to be well it still is the fact that you if there's someone else tell them to get medical attention immediately tell them to call emergency services or if you're on your own you're supposed to do it first yourself and they will guide you into what's actually happening what you've to do and just say you know they're they've i think they've an electric shock they're unconscious it used to be the use to say put your finger and check for a pulse or on the wrist and check for pulse that's out the window now they are basically saying now just go straight to cpr and even if you're not experiencing it it's pressing the chest if just central to the chest between the the nips basically press the chest there apply decent pressure and just pump it and this is because they've discovered that there are rumors theories that uh applying chest compression and some with a beating heart it could potentially stop it that turned out to be a load of crap if someone's heart is actually healthy if it's beating applying that external pressure will not affect it will not stop their heart but if it wasn't beating it will keep the oxygen in the blood flowing through the body and that is the important thing keep blood flowing through the brain because that stops the brain from dying it's the first bit that kind of dies really um if there is somebody else who can provide the breath of life then that's useful but it's a second priority to actually getting that blood flowing um so let's take a look at the environments that uh are probably the most dangerous the ones where most electrocutions occur now i'm in a dry environment right now i'm indoors i've got my crocs on i'm on carpet on wood that's three layers of insulation already then that wood is on air so that's four layers of insulation and to be honest my hands are dry and the outer layer of dead skin has a fairly high resistance but it shouldn't be relied on as an electrical insulator obviously the most shocks occur indoors and they are coincidental some people may even if i touched a live worn out i would not get an electric shock i wouldn't feel anything because there's no path to the current flow in some instances if i was leaning against a wall which was a a stone wall that was damp or if i was standing damp ground or leaning against a fridge or piece of equipment then there is much higher risk of shock this is where i have to say i i see so many people working in factories factory workers that have been shown if this stops working press that reset button and they hold the door open uh of the metal enclosure and they poke around inside they're basically holding a solid ground in their hand don't do that if you do go into electrical panel to work don't hold the door open with your hand nudge it open with a dry bit of clothing your elbow if you have to the other thing is gloves if you're working electrical stuff even if it's dead always play safe i recommend gloves and they don't have to be the utility industry dielectric gloves those big heavy rubber gauntlets that they use to work live i don't recommend using gloves like this to routinely work on live connections and twist live connections but if you're working on electrical equipment put your glove like this on this breathable fabric dipped in plastic it provides an extra layer of insulation between your skin and a dry glove can actually protect you from getting a significant electric shock it'll certainly in the case of hand gripping onto thing it's going to reduce the contact area of a of skin making contact electrical connection even just like standard working gloves like this are a good choice mechanic style gloves but then you get people that say oh i've had lots of electric shocks because i've been working in dry environments and they weren't really anything special i guess i'm immune to electric shock they are not nobody is immune to electric shock the people that present themselves that show people showing themselves get electric shocks and doing stunts it's all fake you're not immune to electric shock and as soon as these people go into a wet environment like working outdoors working electrical pillars in the street working lamp posts working even in the garden on garden a garden fountain pump wet hands wet ground it changes completely suddenly what would have been just milliamps of current flowing through your body will potentially and very quickly become amps of current flowing through your body and that's when it gets very very serious the most dangerous scenarios of people working are people leaning into equipment because if they do make contact uh and their body kind of locks up they're not gonna be able to actually pull themselves back out they're not gonna be they might be able to just flop down the knees and flop out but if they're actually really seriously leaning into something the chance then being able to get out of that situation is low the other a major killer is people reaching into electrical equipment reaching between components thinking they're safe they're not you know going near anything they touch something electrical their arm locks in and they can't get out they're physically hooked around the metal work in the equipment and that is an extremely dangerous scenario don't girdle your hands in in amongst electrical equipment like that it's hidden connections may actually cause that situation to occur confined spaces oh one of my least favorite working in tight areas where you have to shimmy in and you're on a metal surface i'd say that to combine all these three things large areas of exposed metal uh grounded metal water and tight areas some factory production equipment and food the food industry is notorious for that but if you're in a confined space that's where your body may be found just use extra precaution definitely dry gloves double checking only work live if you absolutely have to more information about that down below so reducing the risk of getting a shock obviously isolate wherever possible um in many instances it's not possible to isolate if you're troubleshooting equipment i shall cover that more in the description down below bit of a sore point actually there dry gloves the gloves i've mentioned can make a significant difference if you're doing routine electrical work it's just an extra layer of protection even if you've isolated a circuit it provides that extra layer as some things that occasionally happen you see occasional occasionally see workers that wear a glove in one hand and the bare hand the other hand for finer detailed work if they're isolated from ground that prevents a hand-to-hand shock but it's not an official thing it's always useful to be aware of your surrounding electrical environment if there is a lot of grounded metal in your vicinity if there's water in the vicinity it's something that traditional electricians do it used to be really beaten into us at college to assess the electrical environment before working it and also to expect the unexpected and this is even more important these days now that training has been reduced between one and five days for some workers uh as opposed to what used to be a 8 000 10 000 year apprenticeship with with full mentoring it's i could rant about that i shall mention that down the description down below but uh my worst shock i've ever had was unexpected because i was pulling a control module out of a automatic barricade holding the metal rail well that's my first mistake just now i know i was young and it was a grounded control box and a grounded barrier it shouldn't have been live i pulled it out and it wasn't live until i pulled out a bit further it turned out that someone had removed they'd serviced the box and the circuit board inside that had all the connections on it that grounded onto the case they'd removed the brass spacer they'd lost it somewhere so it wasn't grounded and also they left out plastic spacers that kept the circuit board away from the case so it was only when i pulled out a certain length that the circuit board touched the case i went backwards the circuit board went into the air the control went into the air went bang showers of sparks lots of people watching very embarrassing not a good day but expecting the unexpected particularly things like british boilers and stuff like that where bad modifications to add underfloor heating can result in back feeds from other circuits and things like that yeah expect unexpected this is where the gloves come in again if you're doing electric work and probably around connections but that is it so i definitely check the description down below it contains a lot more information and links to those rather undesirable videos that are very educational but not so great for the people in them so uh definitely check the description down below

Channel: bigclivedotcom

Views: 130,107

Keywords: electric, shock, electrocution, live, contact, muscles, thrown, throw, heart

Id: 9webTbqTH5E

Length: 20min 6sec (1206 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 23 2021