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Stupid and/or Dangerous things you've Seen or Done...

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Mike:
It's an old fridge, so it's probably not grounded or if it is the ground may be faulty. i didn't go near the fridge again though. i've gotten those little tiny shocks before from touching the metal of a fridge but never a full electric shock! The junction box and troffer wiring is all recent (about my age or a few years older) and seems to be all to code. I've never been shocked before by touching the JB. I really can't put my finger on it (no pun) since when i touched any other objects or jsut the JB and fridge individually prior to my shock i didn't fell any shock. It's driving me nuts not knowing what happened. Also, if i feel fine should i still be concerned? I didn't tell anybody (my cousins know though since they were in the basement with me ans though i was faking it at first. They said i practically frozen in place.

I've actually been shocked quite a few times. When i wired my yardblaster i accidentally forgot to wirenut the wires (i only twisted them) and when i touched the fixture i got shocked in my left hand. My bucket light shocked my when i wired the socket with reversed polarity. The bucket is "grounded" by the socket's shell so when the polarity was reversed i bet you can guess what happened when i touched the metal bucket... Is it pure luck that I'm still alive or are 120V shocks not really that dangerous?

GEsoftwhite100watts:
From what I've heard 120v (which I'm assuming this was) is THE MOST dangerous power to work with for two reasons:
1. It's closest to the electricity of the human heart, sounds like it really messed with you!
2. Since it's still a fairly low voltage people don't respect it as a dangerous thing.
I've been zinged a few times by 120v from stuff like removing plugs from an outlet and while trying to remove it my finger got in the way and shorted across, leaving my hand nicely tingling for a couple minutes or trying to change broken-off light bulbs when unbeknownst to me the power was still on, creating sparks and smoke and bright flashes and scaring the cr@p out of me but not shocking me.
From what I understand, DC is actually more dangerous than AC. 32VDC (remember that boat that burned and later sank at the dock along with the wiring disaster pics I have on LG?) is what they THINK started the fire there...I've been told that stuff is pretty sparky.
12VDC isn't too "hot" from what I'm told, although I'm not going to try that.  Same with licking a 9 volt battery or an electric flyswatter (those have high voltage but not many amps and amps is what kills you which is why tasers are super high voltage and knock people down quickly).
Now if you are now thinking 32VDC is bad, try 120VDC!!!  Such a thing did exist, mainly on old boats.  Now I'm told that stuff was REALLY HOT!
Were the switches in a metal box with a metal faceplate? I'm guessing either somewhere in the box there was a loose uninsulated wire touching the box and/or a fault in the freezer that went through your body and was grounded out by the building's electrical system at the switch (since I'm assuming you were wearing shoes it couldn't go directly to ground through what I'm assuming was a bare concrete floor.
I know someone who was shocked by opening a refrigerator...
You might want to let your grandpa know about this or if nothing else put up a sign warning people or something!

joe_347V:
At high voltages DC is more dangerous than AC since the current causes you to grab on...with AC since the current varies you have a higher chance of letting go of the wire. That's why 3rd rails found in subway systems are so dangerous...they tend to run at around 600v DC.

240v (phase to ground) is by far more dangerous than 120v since the voltage is higher so it overcomes the skin's natural resistance easier. This means the current can go across the heart easier. Remember than current NOT voltage is the killer here. It takes less than a 1A of current across the heart for it to stop. Static electricity is a few kV but because the current is very low you won't get killed. Similarly a 9v battery connected directly across the heart can kill because of the high current. The only reason why it dosen't kill you when you touch the terminals is because 9v isn't enough to overcome the skin's natural resistance. 

You should either fix the fridge or let your grandpa know that it tends to shock people...the fridge sound dangerous.

Mike:
@ Andy; yeah it was a metal JB with a metal cover. I'm thinking the fridge is the culprit here. And yes, I was wearing shoes, though the floor has those 1970s brown and tan checkered pattern arranged tiles. Assuming there is a fault in the fridge, if someone barefoot opens the fridge, they'll get a nice shock too. It's not the switch since i was turning it on and off (not rapidly; i'd flip it abotu every 20 seconds or so to watch the lights turn on lol). I wasn't until i leaned my left hand against the freezer door on the fridge that I was shocked.

@ Joe; yeah I should've definetly told someone when i was shocked. I'm seeing him later this week (going to his shop to help him buff out my OV-10's reflector, which he's had forever lol. I might sneek my OV-25's reflector over too while we're buffing the OV-10's heheh) so I'll let him know. Even if the fridge was grounded, if it's shocked me, then there's a loose wire or something inside that needs to be addressed. I'm definetly afriad to touch the fridge again though. :o

A_lights:
Wow that's scary!
I would say its that fridge...a loose wire somewhere touching the ungrounded case, definitely have that fixed...no sense in throwing out an old fridge..they last a long time even though they're less efficient..I've heard of some lasting 60+ years with minimal maintainance,  the voltage might have been higher then 120V because some motors have a high voltage starting i think

I've been shocked about 3 times..once from a plug when unplugging and the other from a F4T5 light that ran off 4 AA batteries,  another time was fairly mild from a 2 lamp.F40 shoplight with a loose ground and a wire touching the case intermittently

Anyways Glad you lived! Its scary with 120V because you Tend to black out and feel tingly and numb. .its such an odd bad feeling

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