Thai High Wire Act, Lineman Does The Tesla Tango With 50,000 Volts

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--See link below for a short video of a Thai lineman surviving a 50,000 Volt tuneup, with only minor injuries.



--This could have been avoided, if he had only stayed grounded, and used a doctored banana or a trank dart on monkey boy, and then caught him with a net. But you know those Thai linemen; they are either asleep at the switch or they are showboating.

"An electrical boffin from Sydney
Caught a twenty amp jolt to the kidney.
And so when he whizzes,
It snaps cracks an fizzes.
An unmetered I source now idney?"
Gator Dundee 1948 -

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[SoftwareSamurai]

If you're an electrician by trade, don't go to Bangkok: You'll have a heart-attack looking at their electric lines everywhere.
Same advice goes for any safety inspector. Just close your eyes when you see a Thai electrician hooking up an AC heat pump outside, barefoot, in the rain, by twisting the bare copper wires together with a live mains feed...with his fingers...and getting shocked...and not stopping...

[FreeThinker]

I was a linesman for the county...Glen Campbell

[Alex]

A Voltstick would have been handy here. 

[alm]

I wonder if this is the whole story. I'm surprised a lineman would assume any wire to be safe unless measured and grounded. Especially since you can't exactly practice lock out and tag out on power lines.

[SoftwareSamurai]

I'm surprised a lineman would assume any wire to be safe unless measured and grounded. Especially since you can't exactly practice lock out and tag out on power lines.

Ever been to Bangkok? OSHA inspectors would run away screaming on a daily basis if they were there.

[alm]

That they don't like to fill out reams of paperwork to satisfy OSHA doesn't mean they have to be suicidal or stupid. I consider someone grabbing a mains distribution wire because someone told them it's safe (who knows the other person even switched of the correct circuit?) either stupid or suicidal. You shouldn't need government regulations to tell you this. I guess this is why dumb safety laws exist.

[SoftwareSamurai]

That they don't like to fill out reams of paperwork to satisfy OSHA doesn't mean they have to be suicidal or stupid. I consider someone grabbing a mains distribution wire because someone told them it's safe (who knows the other person even switched of the correct circuit?) either stupid or suicidal. You shouldn't need government regulations to tell you this. I guess this is why dumb safety laws exist.

Bangkok has an overhead rail transport they call the BTS. To get to it from the street level, you climb up a few flights of stairs. While I was climbing up, holding onto the nice shiny metal handrail, I suddenly noticed over a dozen electric lines were within inches of the handrail. I asked my Thai girlfriend "Isn't that rather dangerous? I mean, someone could simply reach out and grab those live power lines!" She gave me an odd look, and bluntly stated "Thais aren't that stupid." And that's when I had one of the greatest epiphanies of my life. (On a side note, we've been happily married now for over 8 years.)

[ivan747]

Bangkok has an overhead rail transport they call the BTS. To get to it from the street level, you climb up a few flights of stairs. While I was climbing up, holding onto the nice shiny metal handrail, I suddenly noticed over a dozen electric lines were within inches of the handrail. I asked my Thai girlfriend "Isn't that rather dangerous? I mean, someone could simply reach out and grab those live power lines!" She gave me an odd look, and bluntly stated "Thais aren't that stupid." And that's when I had one of the greatest epiphanies of my life. (On a side note, we've been happily married now for over 8 years.)

Are they calling us idiots? 
Even though no one is stupid enough... Oh wait, there is stupid people, just take a look at YouTube's viral fail videos.

[SoftwareSamurai]

Are they calling us idiots? 

No, just the ones dumb enough to grab an obviously dangerous power line.

[NiHaoMike]

On the Texas A&M campus, there is a place where a wire between two buildings is only 7 feet or so above the ground. It looks like it's only a communications cable but nobody seems to know.