15 yr old boy dies attempting to construct a Jacobs ladder

[dmills]

Always tragic when someone gets killed, but being a teenager is dangerous if you do it right, and some percentage will die (Either this way or on a motorbike, or longboard, falls from height, alcohol, cars).

The lack of safety info on youtube videos is somewhat worrying, I see lots of 'how to make rocket candy' type videos that often fail at basic lab safety, or that (almost worse) succeed at doing the lab safety bit but fail at explaining that the mixing is happening in a container that will not fragment, that the clothes are not synthetic, the tools are non sparking and the glasses are shatterproof....

At least the books on energetic chemistry tend to detail the precautions, reaction kinetics and the fact that the fume hood exists for a reason. 

Part of the problem is that in many places schools are now so risk averse that they are unable to expose kids to dangerous things in a controlled environment, so kids do not get the gradual exposure to dangerous things that metalwork class used to teach, same thing for chemistry and physics.

There is a certain type of person (and most of us fit the category I suspect) for whom dangerous machines are just an accepted risk, table saws, lathes, mills, high tension, explosives, motorbikes, it is all fun and none if it is good about taking prisoners, and we do a risk assessment and decide if the risk of an accident is justified by the value of the fun, 15 year olds tend to lack the experience to be able to do that assessment.

Regards, Dan.

[SeanB]

I don't see a public service announcement with every table saw video on youtube either, yet I don't think there's a tool in existence which has claimed more digits. Should videos for HV experiments contain more warnings, yes. Should that be enforced by youtube rules, not unless we are going to be consistent about it in my opinion. Certainly not law.

At the end of the day electricity is likely to teach you respect at some point without killing you, if not ... oh well, that's life.

Correct. You do not see massive education campaigns in school and on TV about the dangers of running into the road, getting on a bus or even jumping on the bed. All of which have caused death in children. There are no warnings on YT videos on people walking on the beach, where many drown in the water, or walking on the side of a lake, where you also have many deaths from drowning. Up to the parents to have at least done a little explanation about the dangers of things, and if they do not know then they are very likely to know somebody who can look it up and advise them.

Sad that the youngster had a fatal accident, but there is a lot more to blame than YT, the parents first of all for either not thinking to do any actual parenting like discuss the things the child does, show interest in what they are actually doing and get involved a little, rather than just ignoring the child and letting them use a computer pretty much unsupervised.

[alsetalokin4017]

I put this disclaimer at the top of the Description on my flyback transformer Jacob's Ladder video:

WARNING: HAZARDOUS VOLTAGES.
PROFESSIONAL IDIOT IN CLOSED ROOM. DO NOT ATTEMPT.
YOU CAN BE KILLED IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE.
DISCHARGE ALL CAPACITORS BEFORE SHOCKING YOURSELF SILLY.

But I have other HV videos where I don't stress safety. I suppose I should go back and edit the descriptions with some strict warnings.
Especially on the one where I use a MOT to drive a Tesla Coil.

[chris_leyson]

When I was his age, actually a few years younger, I found a great book in the local library covering topics like Jacobs ladders and Tesla coils. On a school trip to London, first stop was Ralfe Electronics near Paddington to buy some boiler ignition transformers and a few oil filled caps. The library book spelled out the dangers of electricity but so did the RSGB and ARRL handbooks I had been reading. The Jacobs ladder didn't work too well, the plasma wasn't hot enough and the Tesla coil set itself on fire ! My parents were well pissed off not because I could have killed myself but because I knocked out TV reception for quite a large radius including several neighbours TV's.

I don't think my parents really understood what I was up to and so that's why I got away with it. Good job they didn't know about the home made gunpowder, cannons and rockets. For those who are aware of the dangers it's easy to point the finger of blame at the parents, YouTube or perhaps his peer group in or out of school. It's easy for us to say "he had a lack of understanding of the dangers", he may have been very well aware of the dangers and it could have been an unfortunate accident but at first sight it doesn't seem so. As regards the whole publishing thing, do you blame the author for the video or do you blame the publisher, YouTube (Google). Nope, it's free information.

At the end of the day a young man lost his life, "stupid is as stupid does" harsh but true.
 

[timb]

Exactly. Being a teenager is dangerous. Hell, being a kid is dangerous! By all rights, I *should* be dead. Many times over, in fact. I'm sure that's true for all of us. Think about all the close calls, near misses and accidents you've had in your life.

Seatbelts, vaccines and dumb luck are why most of us are still breathing today.

[CatalinaWOW]

There are many things more dangerous than our hobby.  But most of them are familiar, well understood dangers.  You don't need specialist knowledge to understand the pitfalls.  Much of what happens with electricity is magic to most people.  When I worked for the power company I had conversations that really believed that we captured sunlight in special bottles and piped it to their homes were it was let out through special faucets called light bulbs.

So yes, it would be good to give special warnings for our stuff, for chemistry experiments and for the many other things on youtube that are outside the daily lives of most.  But we also have to realize that no matter what warnings we put on stuff there will be those who are adventurous, or stupid or rebellious and won't read or pay attention.  Darwin doesn't happen in a vacuum.

[Halcyon]

I do believe there's a duty of care to make people aware of the dangers of this sort of experiment but I believe it should be on the shoulders of the video creators, not the host.

Absolutely agree.  The host is just providing a platform and it would be impractical to expect them to have competence in every subject presented, let alone the responsibility to intercede.

The video producer, however, should be more than aware of the risks - and should, IMO, be required to address safety issues as part of their presentation, especially when there can be an interest from viewers with absolutely no practical experience in a field.

I can't say I fully agree. As tragic as this is, we're talking about a 15 year old child. Where was the supervision? Whenever I was allowed to "play" with electricity, my father was there teaching me what was right and wrong and as Dave puts it "no touchy".

We live in a world where there are already too many disclaimers, warning labels and cautions. No matter how much you try and protect people, there will always be those who are killed or injured (usually out of stupidity). I tend to find most people automatically try and blame others when things go wrong rather than accepting liability themselves.

I employ a simple rule in my life; If I don't understand something, I don't touch it.

[dr.diesel]

Where was the supervision? Whenever I was allowed to "play" with electricity,

My parents spent 95% of their time watching TV, the other 5 spent outside on yard work.  The only reason there wasn't a Great Chicago Fire #2 was because they stuffed me in the basement which had a concrete floor, pretty damn hard to catch that on fire.

They had no understanding of electricity/electronics, or the dangers.  To them it was just another sandbox.

[imidis]

I can't say I fully agree. As tragic as this is, we're talking about a 15 year old child. Where was the supervision? Whenever I was allowed to "play" with electricity, my father was there teaching me what was right and wrong and as Dave puts it "no touchy".

We live in a world where there are already too many disclaimers, warning labels and cautions. No matter how much you try and protect people, there will always be those who are killed or injured (usually out of stupidity). I tend to find most people automatically try and blame others when things go wrong rather than accepting liability themselves.

I employ a simple rule in my life; If I don't understand something, I don't touch it.

From what I understand, his parents had knowledge and well aware of what he was attempting, perhaps not knowledge of the dangers involved.

It's easy to blame the internet for everything, I'm sure he watched more than one video and most do have warnings. But, I would say parental interest and supervision would have done well. But it seems as the decades pass parents are less knowledgeable and  less interested in their kids hobbies.

[helius]

I employ a simple rule in my life; If I don't understand something, I don't touch it.

Wise words, but I can think of several counterexamples. How did these ever become popular, for instance:


And there are the standard demonstrations with Whimshurst or Van De Graaf machines, which I doubt are fully understood by the participants.

[continuo]

Kids have always done crazy dangerous things. I remember back when I was a kid they sold a special kind of weed killer in grocery stores called “Unkraut Ex”, which was basically 80% sodium chlorate. This product was very popular among teenagers, they mixed it up with sugar and put it into all kinds of containers for some home made extra loud xxl firecrackers. Some were even dumb enough to fill it into metal pipes and seal them by squeezing the ends in a vice. Lots of incidents all across the country of course, lost hands and even fatalities. There was no internet to blame back then, the “wisdom” was shared by word on the schoolyard. If they want to do something really stupid they always find a way, they don’t need any frickin YouTube for that...

[Shock]

I'm sure this is not the first youtube video that lead to a death, but it's a little irresponsible to not have a disclaimer up front. Even worse are the pretend electrocution videos.

You can't blame the parents, most warn their children multiple times never to play with electricity, but they would have no idea about these experiments themselves.

I believe the "battery" would most likely be the HV capacitor not a transformer as everyone is saying.



 

[imidis]

I'm sure this is not the first youtube video that lead to a death, but it's a little irresponsible to not have a disclaimer up front. Even worse are the pretend electrocution videos.

You can't blame the parents, most warn their children multiple times never to play with electricity, but they would have no idea about these experiments themselves.

For all we know, the video or videos he looked at could have well had a disclaimer. They do not know which video(s) or other instructions he was looking at.

The most detail I found was a video from the grandfather saying he was gathering parts for quite a while, perhaps if the parents googled electric jacobs ladder they would have seen the many high voltage death/injury warnings, perhaps not. Perhaps if they were with him they could have performed CPR, perhaps not. The blame well, does it really matter? I would actually argue as far as youtube goes, there are quite a few knowledgeable people that makes things safer as they explain and know what they are doing and whats not safe.

There are several examples here locally of things. Most mechanics know NOT to trust jacks while working under a car and use both a jack and jack stands, however, someone near here was crushed by his car and died. Perhaps we watched a DIY youtube video, or perhaps they didn't know they should have extra protection holding up the car in case the jack failed.

Also, couch surfing, it doesn't take much common sense to tell someone perhaps being on a couch pulled by a car may be a bad idea? But it happens.

It's particularly easy to point blame, but I do believe parents are not as knowledgeable and as involved as they once were.

[Red Squirrel]

I was very dangerous as a kid, but never played with anything more than 120v 15 amps, basically a regular power outlet.  Still enough to kill, but at that voltage the odds are pretty good you just get a good jolt... and it happened every now and then.

1kv+ High voltage is a whole other beast.  Even now I kinda stay clear of that stuff.  Not too long ago I was trying to measure the output of a LCD inverter so I can see if it's safe to put my scope on it.  Almost blew my DMM, then I tried to build a voltage divider with resistors, but they just blew up.  Then I realized I was being dumb, and I can just measure the input side of the transformer instead of the HV side. 

High voltage also does really weird things, like when I was putting the first lead of the voltage divider on it, it would arc, despite the other end not being connected yet. I still don't know how or why that was happening. 

I do kinda want to build a tesla coil one of these days though, but I don't really have anywhere I could play around with it, I have too much expensive electronics in my house and my yard is small.

[karoru]

I'm sure this is not the first youtube video that lead to a death, but it's a little irresponsible to not have a disclaimer up front. Even worse are the pretend electrocution videos.

You can't blame the parents, most warn their children multiple times never to play with electricity, but they would have no idea about these experiments themselves.

I believe the "battery" would most likely be the HV capacitor not a transformer as everyone is saying.

These ones... In every public available 'hacker' video I'd try to make a big capital letter disclaimer that THEY'RE EARTH REFERENCED. Connected to chassis via one high voltage diode.

[Red Squirrel]

I'm sure this is not the first youtube video that lead to a death, but it's a little irresponsible to not have a disclaimer up front. Even worse are the pretend electrocution videos.

You can't blame the parents, most warn their children multiple times never to play with electricity, but they would have no idea about these experiments themselves.

I believe the "battery" would most likely be the HV capacitor not a transformer as everyone is saying.

Those capacitors are insane dangerous and have to be treated even more carefully than a mains source.  High voltage on it's own is dangerous, high voltage dumping into something in one shot = wowzers.  There's a video of photoninduction where he uses one of these to blow up fruits.  Imagine what it does to your flesh.   Not something you just leave lying around for your cat to tap around the house as a toy. 

[karoru]

Those capacitors are insane dangerous and have to be treated even more carefully than a mains source.  High voltage on it's own is dangerous, high voltage dumping into something in one shot = wowzers.  There's a video of photoninduction where he uses one of these to blow up fruits.  Imagine what it does to your flesh.   Not something you just leave lying around for your cat to tap around the house as a toy. 

Most danger comes from disassembling them from an actual appliance, because they're connected to the chassis via just the single diode, and it's pretty easy to have one hand on metal chassis during trying to remove them (because people for some reason assume that it'll be galvanic isolated from the rest of the appliance, like your typical HV circuit).

[Hydrawerk]

In early 2011 when I was 21 years old, I did some HV experiments with a CRT TV transformer, but I do not think It could harm me. There was not much energy in the power supply. It was not connected directly to mains. The sparks were rather small, also. There was no HV capacitor.

[GK]

Attitudes have changed a lot in just the last few decades. I don't know how I managed to make it through adolescence with nothing worse than a plaster cast, some lacerations and a few minor fractures.

When I was around the age of 7 or 8 we upgraded our washing machine and I was given free reign to tear the old one down for fun. I salvaged the drum motor, water pump and switch gear. I experimented by wiring all of these up, along with some 240V light bulbs for good measure, in assorted series/parallel combinations, spread out on my bedroom floor. Connecting wires came from stripped extension cord and connections were the bare stripped wire ends twisted together with my fingers, so with the motors spinning away and the light bulbs glowing I was stepping around my wiring mesh barefoot, in between the live wires.
I knew the potential danger and was carful, but eventually stuffed up in my enthusiasm and noticed a sharp pain in my foot. I had stepped on a twisted connection and one of the bare copper strands stuck into me. A minor ouch and an initial second or so of realisation and panic, but, to my relief, no electrical shock.
I was smart enough not to try making bodily contact with any other wires or to immediately assume that the whole electrical danger message was a elaborate hoax, but I was utterly dumbfounded and enthralled by the fact that I could hang onto a real live mains wire with complete immunity and without any apparent danger at all.
Of course I had NFI at the time that it was the neural wire that I had initially stepped on, which is hard-wired to earth back at the fuse box, but I quickly used this discovery to demonstrate to my mother that I was fully conversant with this electrical theory stuff and that what I was doing was totally safe.
She freaked a bit and started ranting, calling my father into the room. Her: "What if he electrocutes himself?! What then?!". Him, shrugging: "Hmpff, then no more Gleney". From that point onwards I was left entirely to my own devices with anything plugged into the mains, without further interference (or any real interest at all, really) from my parents.

I think people used to have and raise kids with the expectation or simply just unquestionably/fatalistically resigned to the fact that injury and potentially death was a natural part of the equation. These days barely any council will erect a slippery dip higher than a few meters in a public park and my old high school now looks like freaking Fort Knox.

[GK]

I employ a simple rule in my life; If I don't understand something, I don't touch it.

No interest in women then?

[Halcyon]

I employ a simple rule in my life; If I don't understand something, I don't touch it.

No interest in women then?

Well this is awkward... Truthfully? No.

Maybe that's where I get it from?   

[GK]

Well this is awkward..

LOL. You have it easy in ways you probably can't imagine.

[Shock]

For all we know...

My point was warnings/disclaimers are a good idea and parenting often has little to do with it. Can't morally blame people for being uninformed, but you can if they were warned and didn't take the advice.

That is why appliances have stupid warnings because some people have no idea what is safe and what isn't.

[imidis]

For all we know...

My point was warnings/disclaimers are a good idea and parenting often has little to do with it. Can't morally blame people for being uninformed, but you can if they were warned and didn't take the advice.

That is why appliances have stupid warnings because some people have no idea what is safe and what isn't.

True. 

[johansen]

I once left a tube transformer in my room, with its numerous solder terminals exposed, with a plug soldered onto the 120vac primary (i had half a thought that wasn't a good idea) which it wasn't, somehow somehow both my brothers got shocked at the same time. (that particular transformer had a 500volt secondary as its highest voltage, and many intermediate voltages)

Years later I found out my brother knew better than to mess with it at the time, even though he was on the order of 7-8 years old.

Around the same age, apparently he found out water and electricity don't mix, as we've all been told, they don't mix. but he didn't know this for certain, so he cut the end off an extension cord, stripped the ends and put them in (i think he said) metal pie tin full of water. Nothing happened.

so yes, water and electricity don't mix kids.

My sister was told very early in life, don't put knives in the toaster. so she put a fork in, and got shocked. -was angry that no one told her "don't put anything metal in a toaster"