Stupid person!!

[normspanners]

I just done a really stupid thing.
One of my makita 9" was not starting on the odd occation, I was bored whilst tea was cooking so I thought I'll fit some new brushes, i had them in stock, so I fitted them, ran the grinder for a few minutes to bed them in no probs. Switched it off at the plug job done I thought.
Put the kettle on, then thought, Oh I will put a new cable strain rubber in the handle of the grinder as it was in the bag with the brushes and cut off the last few inches of wire where they usually fret.I allways have at least a 6 mtr cable on my grinders so the cable can allways be behind you SAFETY FIRST me thinking !!
So striped off the handle undid the switch took the cable off with a none insulated philips, Not electrians driver BTW, pulled the cable out etc and dropped it down to the floor on the way down it hit my right hand and I got this tingling feeling ! YEP it was still plugged in and somebody had switched it on instead of the toaster !!
I know people are all ready writing you should have unplugged it!
I KNOW I SHOULD !! and I SHOULD have had the plug in front of me so I could see it.
BUT it just shows that you should not drop your concentration even when bored.
SO MUCH FOR SAFETY FIRST HA!!!
It's good to get a shock now and then at least you know your still alive !!!

 

[normspanners]

HUM just had thought the wifes maiden name was WYRES
She could have thought and quite rightly said he was killed by ----- wires.
But only the family would know !!!

 

[rkde]

Glad your OK though. Was working on a 3 phase control board this week, looked up at the big switch... ooh God it's still on. Felt very lucky as I had been removing relays with it all on. Some times its too easy to make mistakes

 

[DrNik]

i was given a record player as a kid (about 12 yrs old) i didnt have any speakers, but thought great, found a couple of records and started to play them, i could just about hear the music through the needle, this was great for about 2 minutes, then i remembered that if i put my tongue across the speaker wires i could feel the tingle of the music, so thinking sensibly i turned the music right down, put the two wires across my tongue and flew across the room, after coming to my senses and no-one running to my aid i touched the wires together, big flash of light, the wires were live. Someone had made connections to the on/off switch to turn the tape recorder on/off, still get the odd shock normally my partners hairdressing bill

 

[brewdexta]

The obvious one that got me was the landing light switch. Turned off the upstairs lights at the consumer unit to work on it but the power was fed via the downstairs lights as there's a switch downstairs too. Needless to say I always check with a meter now!

 

[F.J.]

When we were younger my brother thought it would be interesting to see what happened if he took the bulb out if his bed side lamp and put his finger in (at the time we were about 13). I've never seen anyone fly so fast. He didn't take off as such but the lamp flew one way and his hand that was in the lamp flew the other spinning him around and off his feet. When he got up his nose was bleeding and he said his head was throbbing for ages afterwards. At the time I laughed so much I almost wet myself but have since had the odd shock here and there and you soon realise not to joke about with wires. We still laugh about it now cos his face was a right picture and he had a fairly deep hole in his finger where the electricity bit him

 

[Exuptoy]

During my apprenticeship I was working as British Steel and was told by my foreman to remove some lighting which was disconnected. I grabbed hold of the cable tray racking, put my foot on the lower racking and swung myself up and grabbed the fitting I was meant to be disconnecting, which caused me to be thrown off the racking. Massive earth fault but there was no earth due to poor cabling etc and I had just earthed it out.

I hate shocks!

 

[cumbriasteve]

I was safety controlling a repair to a massive building extract fan, the heavy steel blades would be I guess 2 metres each.

To maintain the fan it is isolated and the sparky crawls through the blade area to gain access.

They told me they were ready and I asked for test proof that the fan was isolated, this annoyed them because they saw it as a sign I did not trust their skills, stating they had signed it off as isolated on the permit to work so it is bound to be isolated.

They pressed the button in the control room 20 metres away and it started, they had isolated the aux fan by mistake, the blades would have mangled the poor guy if someone had hit the button while he was in there.

 

[Epicyclic]

Pleased your ok Norm! It only takes a moments loss of concentration...

This is quite the opposite
Plasterer and mate doing our new house front room, evening job for cash so extension lead with bid lights on. Plasterer goes over everywhere including the metal boxes for the sockets with the wires taped up in them. His mate goes round with a metal handled Stanley knife clearing the plaster out - BANG - across the room he went
Gets up, shakes himself, and goes on to the next one. Plasterer says "he's always doing that" and gets on finishing it off.
Ho hum.

 

[wheresmejumper]

i house i wired,and pre tested,was getting the main supply connected by a guy from elec supply board.he mixed up the live and earth,every earth in the house became live.there was a plumber fixing pipework under the boiler,which was bonded.he got a nice whack.went and got his mate to 'have a look' at the pipework in question who also got a bang,and his mate....

 

[Pete.]

I once drew a 110v lead from stores, got to site to find it had a male plug both ends. Caused some mirth on site.

 

[pedrobedro]

I was fitting some new wall lights in the front room, took all the old ones off and fitted the first one. Decide to look what it looked like lit then went on to fit the next one forgetting to switch the power back off. I once ran over the lawnmower cable and picked the cut end up as well, same sort of result. When we were kids in the days of round pin plugs my sister could not get her hair dryer plug out of the socket and decided to use a dinner knife to prise it out resulting in a bang and a trip across the kitchen,

 

[brewdexta]

My dog once bit the extension lead as its swung too and fro out of the window provocatively while I was mowing the lawn. Note the "once"

 

[Exuptoy]

I once did a job for a friend of the family whose dad only had a few months left due to cancer. They wanted the house put right before he shuffled off. I moved the cooker switch to the opposite side of the kitchen and fitted a fan light.

Got a call about 4 days later to check the work as the owners wife was getting a belt off the taps etc. I s**t myself thinking I had inadvertently done something even though I knew it was ok as I had checked my work before completion. Turns out a chippy had been there after me, fitting picture rail and had spiked the light switch cables in the wall. The house had never had an earth rod fitted and there was a floating earth, so now everything which was bonded or earthed was now live. Washing machine, sink, copper pipes, taps, and she was the only one in the house who had felt it!!!!!

1 rod and earth cable later and a repaired switch wire and all was ok.

 

[DrNik]

up in the loft i thought id be clever and as i needed a light left the power on, i was moving a bedroom light to the middle of the room, with a trusty stanley knife i carefully stripped the wire, getting cocky i did the earth and the neutral, when it came to stripping the live,forgot that a metal stanley i was holding, blood everywhere as i slashed myself trying to let go of the wires, foot through the ceiling, "im fine love" i shouted down

 

[Titus A Duxass]

up in the loft i thought id be clever and as i needed a light left the power on, i was moving a bedroom light to the middle of the room, with a trusty stanley knife i carefully stripped the wire, getting cocky i did the earth and the neutral, when it came to stripping the live,forgot that a metal stanley i was holding, blood everywhere as i slashed myself trying to let go of the wires, foot through the ceiling, "im fine love" i shouted down

Brilliant I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

[Seano]

up in the loft i thought id be clever and as i needed a light left the power on, i was moving a bedroom light to the middle of the room, with a trusty stanley knife i carefully stripped the wire, getting cocky i did the earth and the neutral, when it came to stripping the live,forgot that a metal stanley i was holding, blood everywhere as i slashed myself trying to let go of the wires, foot through the ceiling, "im fine love" i shouted down

Shouldn't really, PMSL......

 

[chunkolini]

Electrickery always make me laugh.
I used to play with mains electric as a lad.
First attempt, a bit like DrNik, lets be clever. Put the scalextric on the mains and get mega power cars.
Pow pow, exploding cars. Good game, my digital watch, pow!, any electrical toys, one fairy light pow. Etc etc. the the idiot wonders what happens when you grab the electrodes on the electric fire the element was missing. Pow! amazing so I did it again. Nne of use ever got hurt or burned amazingly.
Then the idiot got really clever, Big sisters fish. We set the wires up from the fire into the fish bowl just about to throw the switch, we hear a cough.
My old man was watching us. Fishy survived so did I; just about.

I once missed by a few seconds a rather brain dead big headed exmate electrocute himself. Put a 6v battery to your tongue and you can 'taste' the current. he figured he could measure it so he put a pair of wires from it and bit them together. His face a few moments later was a picture, but I could not get him to do it again.

Electricity is damn dangerous stuff, these days I dont take liberties with it.

 

[matt1978]

I wish there was a Facebook'esque 'like' button in this forum because I
would of just pressed it after reading Chunko's post.

Have you thought about penning "the exploits of the great Chunkolini"?

 

[DrNik]

how about this one,when we were just about driving cars legally about 1990, some lads had nicked a car and rallied it all over the local golf course and then to the top of Painswick beacon, dumped the car and then came and told us how much fun they had,we were in the car quick as a flash and headed for the hill, well there wasn't a road to the top, so we drove as far as we could, and then hiked to the top of the hill with a wheel nut spanner, the idea was to nick the alloys off it for my car, found the car, and set to work taking the wheels off, well we managed the first two and started to walk down the hill, the wheels were quite heavy so we stopped a few times, came up with a brain wave, we could roll the wheels to the car, if it goes too fast we could kick them over, well for the shallow bit of the hill all went well, then the hill gets a bit steeper and we were running for all we could,then the wheels started to outrun us we watched as the wheels accelerated." dont worry they will stop at the road" i said, well the wheels were really going for it, they bounced off the bank 10 feet onto what we thought was the road, well like a scene out of a film the wheels took off bouncing over the road and carried on through the trees and gathering speed we made a sharp exit, so if anyone found a wheel or two, they aint mine