Mom always said I had potential

This may sound funny, but I was lucky I got shocked.

Sunday … about 6:00 PM … the lights go out …

This sucked for a number reasons. First of all, it got dark in house. Second of all, it’s over 90 degrees outside, and my wife is allergic to temperatures above 74. Third, I was ten minutes away from completing my download of the “Red Hat 7.3 Disc 1” ISO I needed to install the Dragon*ConTV software.

I checked the house breakers … they were fine. The next place to check is the main service breaker under the meter, which is about 100 feet away from the house (the pole is in the woods, it was like that when we moved in). So I put on my shoes and walk down to the pole. All I have to do is open the access panel to check the breaker.

Of course, the access panel is stuck shut. I didn’t take my Leatherman with me, so I didn’t have anything to pry the box open with. I look at the fence line and see one of the old electric fence gate latches, which is basically a rubber handle with a hook on it. The electric fence in the back is disconnected, so I decide to use this little hook as an ad hoc box opener.

I pickup the handle and turn back towards the access panel. This is when the slick wire on the end of handle touches my arm … and I get shocked.

The fence charger is off … the fence wire I touched isn’t hooked up to the charger …

At this point I decide I don’t really care about the breaker status anymore. I go back to the house and have Suzan check on the neighbor’s power while I look for overhanging tree limbs. Sure enough, I find a Walton EMC showed up within a few hours, only fifteen minutes after the dispatch told us they would be there. They made quick work of trimming branches and reconnecting the power service. Later the technician explained what had happened. The ground wire from our power service had apparently been rubbing against a tree branch for some whilw, and finally decided to snap. When I got shocked, I was temporarily acting as the ground path for my home’s electrical service.

The tingle tells you it’s working …

If I hadn’t been shocked by the fence, I would have probably come back to pry the circuit box open with some flat metal object. I’m sure that would have hurt. Instead I only suffered a mild tingle in my arm, followed by a few minutes of queasy stomach.

When I taught power electronics lab at Clemson, I used to describe getting shocked as becoming the R in the circuit diagram of life. I hate it when I validate one of my strange statements.