Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 23:25:48 +0100
From: Steve Rodway
To: chip@pupman.com
Subject: Cautionary tale

I was reading the safety sheet on the web site, and I thought that you might be interested in putting the following as a caution to others.

I was working alone (stupid I know) on a night a few months ago with an 11Kv pole pig. The resistive ballast was set for 32Kw, so 3A rms current available at the high voltage connections. I thought I had shut of the power, so I reached down to adjust the transformer connections, and touched both at once. I was thrown 6-10 ft across the room and I'm not a light person, 6ft1in and 16 stone, I was unconscious for over 1/2 hour, and was shaking and had an arrhythmic heat beat for nearly a day. Now I have an unusually high tolerance to electric shocks as I've been getting mains and higher shocks on a weekly basis for years (I'm a very careless electrical engineer). I now bearly notice a 240v shock, so consider what the 11Kv discharge might to do someone without my tolerance :-(.

Just thought this might make a good warning to others, if you want any more info, drop me a line at the Email below.