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Woman whacked by lightning


Morgoth

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I guess this has something to do with the magic that is electricity, more specifically grounding. Why she didn't get more seriously damaged that is.

no, not really. the shortest path (least resistance) between where the electricity was traveling to (ultimately ground) and where it hit her is all that happened. being "grounded" doesn't really make a difference with electricity that has high enough voltage to cut across several miles of open air.

 

i don't agree with her assessment on why there were no entry/exit wounds, however. even one of the "finger arcs" (as she put it) would have left such wounds had they actually entered her body. more than likely it is because the lightning merely traveled on the outside of her skin. perhaps her skin was damp and the moisture mixed with sweat creating a good conductor. i think that would be a better explanation as to why she was not hurt worse.

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

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I got myself struck by strong current of electricity due to a short in an appliance a few years back and let me tell you it was not fun. I imagine a bolt of lightning would be even worse.

Murphy's Law of Computer Gaming: The listed minimum specifications written on the box by the publisher are not the minimum specifications of the game set by the developer.

 

@\NightandtheShape/@ - "Because you're a bizzare strange deranged human?"

Walsingham- "Sand - always rushing around, stirring up apathy."

Joseph Bulock - "Another headache, courtesy of Sand"

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When a lighning hits a tree, it usually tears it apart. With humans/animals though, the current flows through the skin and takes the shortest path to the least resistance, that would be ground. That's why humans don't explode when they get hit....like trees.

 

I was standing right in front of a tree that was struck by lightning once.

 

It really does explode.. Quite fascinating actually..

Fortune favors the bald.

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I got myself struck by strong current of electricity due to a short in an appliance a few years back and let me tell you it was not fun. I imagine a bolt of lightning would be even worse.

yes and no. yes, from sheer magnitude, no since it is a DC current. the faulty appliance was AC which does nasty things to your organs. lightning is essentially static electricity, just extremely powerful (high voltage and current) and capable of burning skin and/or boiling your innards. your skin is normally pretty high resistance (several kohms), but sweat and moisture drop it, which can be good or bad, depending upon whether the charge goes through you or stays on the outside (as with this woman i'm guessing).

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

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When a lighning hits a tree, it usually tears it apart. With humans/animals though, the current flows through the skin and takes the shortest path to the least resistance, that would be ground. That's why humans don't explode when they get hit....like trees.

 

I was standing right in front of a tree that was struck by lightning once.

 

It really does explode.. Quite fascinating actually..

It's because trees are inside more moisty, that's where the current seeks to lead a channel. Human skin though has these fine pores where the current leads through I think. Otherwise, this would be pretty messy....

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It really does explode.. Quite fascinating actually..

insta-boil for all the water inside it.

 

um, what on earth is a "platinous," morgoth?

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

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um, what on earth is a "platinous," morgoth?

 

taks

 

A subspecies of the platipus, maybe? Yes? No?

Murphy's Law of Computer Gaming: The listed minimum specifications written on the box by the publisher are not the minimum specifications of the game set by the developer.

 

@\NightandtheShape/@ - "Because you're a bizzare strange deranged human?"

Walsingham- "Sand - always rushing around, stirring up apathy."

Joseph Bulock - "Another headache, courtesy of Sand"

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Human skin though has these fine pores where the current leads through I think. Otherwise, this would be pretty messy....

nah, just the conductivity of the moisture in the skin, which is mixed with various salts (water by itself is an insulator, btw).

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

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being "grounded" doesn't really make a difference with electricity that has high enough voltage to cut across several miles of open air.

 

True enough. During a conversation about conductive materials I told someone once that with sufficient EMF anything is a conductor.

"While it is true you learn with age, the down side is what you often learn is what a damn fool you were before"

Thomas Sowell

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Dammit, I mean a PCB.

gotcha. i'm surprised a 10 nF cap would hurt, however. you can get the little buggers in 1.6x0.8 mm (dubbed an 0603, btw), so they're pretty small. you likely just connected the two sides and got a shock from that. i must say that i never wear a ring when i'm playing around with PCBs... the first time you melt one you learn (fortunately, my first boss was the one that did the melting).

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

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Dammit, I mean a PCB.

gotcha. i'm surprised a 10 nF cap would hurt, however. you can get the little buggers in 1.6x0.8 mm (dubbed an 0603, btw), so they're pretty small. you likely just connected the two sides and got a shock from that. i must say that i never wear a ring when i'm playing around with PCBs... the first time you melt one you learn (fortunately, my first boss was the one that did the melting).

 

taks

I'm not sure about these 10nF anymore, but it was this huge ELCO thingy you normally use to smooth the rectifier DC.

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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, with electricity potentially lethal. Fortunately I don't know a damn thing.

I didn't touch it deliberately. A buddy handed me the PCB over in a sloppy way, and the two conductors landed on my moisty handpalms. Normally, ELCOS gotta be discharged over a resistor, but for whatever hells reason, this one was still charged.

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I'm not sure about these 10nF anymore, but it was this huge ELCO thingy you normally use to smooth the rectifier DC.

ah, not 10 nF then, which is usually going to be a ceramic/nylon capacitor. probably more like a large electrolytic, which is what is typically used in an AC to DC conversion circuit (which will have a rectifier in it). yes, that might hurt a bit since it could have several Farads of charge.

 

i peed on an electric fence once (cattle fence). i was close enough that i got a sting, but not much. been so long i can't even remember the details.

 

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, with electricity potentially lethal. Fortunately I don't know a damn thing.

three degrees on the subject and nearly 20 years of working with electricity and it still scares the crap out of me. i absolutely HATE getting a jump-start for a car even though i know it's very difficult to get hurt doing it.

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

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i peed on an electric fence once (cattle fence). i was close enough that i got a sting, but not much. been so long i can't even remember the details.

 

One of my mother's favorite sayings about people learning from their own mistakes rather than from the mistakes of others is "Some people just have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."

 

Apparently you're one of those people! :lol:

Anybody here catch that? All I understood was 'very'.

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yup. i was a kid, probably 12 or so at the time. if you do it more than a few inches or so away there is no conductive path (even a water faucet breaks out into separate "drops" after a few inches) but i recall knowing this from some slow-motion photography or something. in other words, not only did i have to pee on the fence, i pushed it to find out for sure.

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

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