Hugo, 14, electrocuted in his bath because of his mobile phone !

[Jeroen3]

0603 Y capacitors.

[Zero999]

Transformer isolated or not, with a faulty charger this months Darwin Award winner would have got zapped regardless 

Both legs of the transformers output added with water and conductive phone 's e x y'     metal parts will fix you real good with either a good terminal jolt or a gradual low current demise 

That's extremely unlikely to happen, with an isolation transformer powering the SMPS.

[oldway]

Glad to see that my post has provoked so many reactions.
My goal was to remember the dangers of electricity and the importance of compliance with safety rules.

I offer my condolences to the family of this young boy victim of an unfortunate accident.

Even if for the experts of this forum, he has committed an obvious imprudence, it is certainly not his fault because he was not informed of the dangers of electricity.

Despite all the very strict standards and regulations that exist in Belgium (GFI 30mA mandatory, ban electrical outlets near a water point, grounded conductive parts...) and in Europe (double insulation, compliance with safety rules, .. ..), the system was unable to avoid a tragedy ....

We must learn a lesson: never neglect safety, whe are responsable of our own safety and for the safety of other people.

[tszaboo]

2. WTF are there still outlets in bathroom that don't have GFCI? GFCI should be installed at service panel level, spare some high leakage/high power stuff such as AC/heater, but those things should have their own GFCI.

Right now I am writing from a hotel, from The Netherlands, and non of the plugs have ground pin.

[GreyWoolfe]

Ah yes, it is new houses that need them. I've just never really seen a house without them, and any person with any level of sense walking into a bathroom without one would immediately drop what they are doing, run to the store, and throw one in for 5 bucks.

Our house was built in 1989 and didn't have a gfci in the bathroom.  It didn't bother my wife or I when we bought it in 2004.  When we remodeled the bathroom in 2010, I replaced the outlet with a gfci.  When the city inspector came to do the final sign off on the plumbing rework, he noticed the addition.  He looked at me with a raised eyebrow and I just smiled.  He didn't say a word, just signed off on the permit.  I should have pulled an electrical permit to change it because inspectors were going to come in and out to check the plumbing work but didn't want to spend the extra money and wait for a sign off just to change it.

[Ampera]

You need a permit to change an outlet?

Damn, you need one for everything.

[Electro Detective]

...We must learn a lesson: never neglect safety, whe are responsable of our own safety and for the safety of other people.

We who are electrical safety minded can nag other people till the cows come to water,

but very few take warnings seriously till a mishap comes along and then they 'listen',
the ones that live to tell of their  'adventure' are the lucky ones

Unfortunately Hugo didn't make it, and unlikely any of his phone junkie age group will take it on board once the mourning is over 


They should be worded up to leave their phones on charge in the bedroom, and go old school in the bath with comics... or 'magazines'   

Transformer isolated or not, with a faulty charger this months Darwin Award winner would have got zapped regardless 

Both legs of the transformers output added with water and conductive phone 's e x y'     metal parts will fix you real good with either a good terminal jolt or a gradual low current demise 

That's extremely unlikely to happen, with an isolation transformer powering the SMPS.

My old mate Murphy can make anything like that just happen...somehow   

[Cyberdragon]

The article said nothing about EXACTLY how he was electrocuted, it just said he was "handling" it. It's way to short and could be just oversimplified news spin (IE, he may have actually touched the mains).

Again, it's not "OMG, kids and their phones these days!", it's "OMG, kids with electricity and water!". It would have been the same result if a girl was curling her hair in the tub. The parents should know there should be GFIs in the bathroom just in case the kids disregard their safety anyway. Some kids like to be defiant and do things just because you tell them not to (forbidden fruit principal).

[Electro Detective]

If you're going to have faith in GFCI / RCDs I'd suggest having one in the bathroom as well as a main one at the switchboard

It's a good bet but not really that safe, especially if not tested often with an external trip device

Those TEST buttons merely test the internals of the GFCI / RCD,

it's not a REAL 'test' simulating a fault or dumbass family member or guest about to get zapped


I believe a bathroom should have separate isolation from the rest of the building, consisting of a separate GFCI / RCD, a very fast MCB, and a thermal cutout breaker to cover most bases

and if there are guests at the house, young children and phone junkies into water based selfie snapping, you can switch off power to the bathroom at will from the switchboard with a lock off device,

so it's no longer your possible liability or problem... 


and continue boozing and blabbing away and let them fry themselves somewhere else       

[Cyberdragon]

  If you turn off the bathroom power, you'll create a wet floor + darkness situation...

[IanMacdonald]

Best safety policy would be no exposed earths allowed in a bathroom. Require that metal fittings have a tough non-conducting coating.

The situation is very similar to live work on high voltage gear.  As soon as you earth yourself, any shock will be MUCH worse. When your hands or feet are wet, doubly so.

It took a long, long time for the electrical industry to recognise that hand tools with insulating cases are much safer than those with earthed metal cases. Probably only came about when stats for electrocutions were analysed and it was found that metal cased  tools were the usual culprits.

[Electro Detective]

If you turn off the bathroom power, you'll create a wet floor + darkness situation...

I was referring to bathroom power sockets only, lighting is usually on separate circuits

If they slip on the wet floor with or without lighting they deserve it for getting it wet

I supply clean personal and floor towels, assuming most phone junkies at least know how to use them without googling it

or posting the 'how to' question on Facebook 


Either way, whatever precautions taken to save lives, some bright spark will run an extension cord to the bathroom when I'm out, and get the party started   

[tautech]

Best safety policy would be no exposed earths allowed in a bathroom. Require that metal fittings have a tough non-conducting coating.

No copper plumbing or stainless, chrome plated or heaven forbid, gold taps ?

You best rethink that statement.

[Electro Detective]

I've had a re-think too    

Bathroom door kept locked 24/7,

anyone needing to use it gets searched for phones and chargers which must be handed over if found

and returned afterwards


Anyone not complying can go out in the rain with a bar of soap, BYO towel and mirror and rubber boots,

and take their chances lightning won't come   



 

[Cyberdragon]

If you find a cord your kid ran into the bathroom. You unplug it immediately, bust in to see if they're alive, then whack them with the end of the cord.

[Ampera]

If you turn off the bathroom power, you'll create a wet floor + darkness situation...

I was referring to bathroom power sockets only, lighting is usually on separate circuits

If they slip on the wet floor with or without lighting they deserve it for getting it wet

I supply clean personal and floor towels, assuming most phone junkies at least know how to use them without googling it

or posting the 'how to' question on Facebook 


Either way, whatever precautions taken to save lives, some bright spark will run an extension cord to the bathroom when I'm out, and get the party started   

Not in my part of the US. Circuits tend to just be thrown together here. Our kitchen has 3 different circuits, and each of them are shared with 3-5 other rooms, including one on the third story. If the microwave and the AC take out a circuit, half the kitchen is out, half the upstairs lighting is out, but the fridge and stove timer are still on.

[Lion_Tamer]

Just to clarify the situation here in the UK:

The electrical regulations are not retrospective, so as long as it meets the regulations in force at the time that it was installed then no upgrades have to be made - as the regulations get updated every 2 or 3 years that would create an astronomical amount of work.

If an alteration is made to a circuit then that circuit must be brought up to current regulation standard.

Current standards state that all final circuits within a domestic building (except for a couple of niche cases) must be protected by a 30mA RCD (GFI) - there are normally a minimum of 2 within the property so that you don't lose all power at once.

Locations containing a bath or shower are classed as a special location with extra rules, one of these rules is that we cannot have a socket outlet within 3M of zone 1 (edge of bath), the only exception is a shaver socket with isolated transformer output, all the other electrical equipment can only be installed within certain zones.

Jem

[Ampera]

In the US, outside of basic safety and national standards, like NEMA outlets, and mandating things like using conduits, and GFCIs in wet areas, all bets are off in the US. You can go from a sensibly wired house with logical circuit layout and nice 20A outlets and circuits, to a mess of a hodge podge with dual fuse boxes, a mix of NEMA 1-15, 1-20, 5-15, or 5-20 outlets, as well as dryer and stove outlets in incredibly weird places. I've even heard stories about circuit breakers being in bathrooms (and maybe even in the bathtub). Shuttered outlets are a new idea, and not present in most places. You can also go anywhere from oil, to natural gas, to electric, to even wood heating for water and ambient purposes.

Don't even get me started on telecoms.

[Zero999]

Transformer isolated or not, with a faulty charger this months Darwin Award winner would have got zapped regardless 

Both legs of the transformers output added with water and conductive phone 's e x y'     metal parts will fix you real good with either a good terminal jolt or a gradual low current demise 

That's extremely unlikely to happen, with an isolation transformer powering the SMPS.

My old mate Murphy can make anything like that just happen...somehow   

When I said unlikely, I really meant virtually impossible.

If the phone charger is powered from an isolated, switched mode power supply, run off an approved isolation transformer. How can one part of the phone be connected to one side of the isolation transformer's secondary and different part of the phone, to the other side of transformer's secondary? Even if the insulation inside the switched mode power supply failed, it would connect the whole phone to the same potential and no current would flow.

This wouldn't happen in the UK, since there are no three pin outlets permitted in the bathroom and the isolation transformer protected shaver sockets have a two pin socket, which is incomparable with standard 3 pin mains plugs. The only way for this to happen would be for the person to plug an extension lead into the socket in another room and take it into the bathroom

[NiHaoMike]

But no, we don't have a third fail safe circuit, so if the lighting/socket GFCI trips, you end up in pitch dark.

Weren't they the ones to invent the LED bulb that has battery backup built in which still works on a usual switched lighting circuit?

[tooki]

As has been discussed before, crap chargers are not the main issue. It's using an unprotected (non-GFI) in the bathroom period!

Using his brains would have saved him (didn't read the article, just a guess), not the GFCI. To me it looks like just another darwin award.

The guy is 14. There is no physics education in those ages in many places, and some are just not going to realize the dangers involved. Also today it seems to be more important to have gender studies and literature for 12 years studied than talking about these topics at school:
Electricity and how not to die.
How to not spend all your money.
How do you become a useful person in society.
Swimming, aka how not to die in 2m deep water.

I know that this unfortunate incident didn't take place in the UK but I believe kids are educated there on electricity. I heard about this coming from someone there. The kids have to eventually know how to set up their own plug since an appliance's mains comes with bare wires you have to screw in yourself. Not sure how true it is nowaday though. Picture related.

Hasn't been the case since around 1990, IIRC. Now pre-attached plugs are required by law.

[Zero999]

Yes, it's been law for all appliances sold in the UK to come pre-fitted with a mains plug, for a long time now. I remember seeing appliances sold without plugs as a child and thinking it was odd that he plug was sold separately. I don't think it's done much to improve electrical safety though as quite often pre-fitted plugs are poor quality.

[Red Squirrel]

I read somewhere that selling without plug attached made it so the product is not considered finished.  It got around some kind of tariff.    Not a bad idea I guess.

[tooki]

I read somewhere that selling without plug attached made it so the product is not considered finished.  It got around some kind of tariff.    Not a bad idea I guess.

Nah. It was simply because in the past, the UK had a smattering of different outlets in use, so a manufacturer couldn’t know which you had. And then, in typical inertia fashion, the tradition of selling without plugs continued until the law changed in the early 90s.

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/31/world/mere-plug-at-the-wire-s-end-in-england-that-s-progress.html

[Neilm]

I read somewhere that selling without plug attached made it so the product is not considered finished.  It got around some kind of tariff.    Not a bad idea I guess.

Nah. It was simply because in the past, the UK had a smattering of different outlets in use, so a manufacturer couldn’t know which you had. And then, in typical inertia fashion, the tradition of selling without plugs continued until the law changed in the early 90s.

https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/31/world/mere-plug-at-the-wire-s-end-in-england-that-s-progress.html

Given that the BS1363 plug was adopted shortly after WW2 (as a result of the copper shortage) I am surprised it too so long. That being said, I remember at about that time having to wire a plug as part of my pysics exam.