‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022) • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#191

Post by iso1631 » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:03 PM UTC

ak217 wrote: post #184

falcolas wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Limited by the wiring and circuit breakers - typically 15amps. With as resistive as skin is to electricity, 110 isn't usually enough to overcome it and push power through the heart. Keyword: usually

The 15A limit in the circuit breaker is there to protect the wires, not you. 15A at 110V passing through your body will cause massive damage and literally cook you after stopping your heart if it's in the way. Modern circuit breakers and outlets have GFCI/AFCI electronics that detect abnormal current leaks to ground and abnormal waveforms, and shut off the circuit. These actually stand a chance of saving you in a sce…

If you have the live and neutral on the same finger you might be ok, the current wouldn't pass through your heart.

If you're earthed/grounded through your feet though, that's a problem, likewise if it's live on one hand and neutral on the other.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#192

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:07 PM UTC

emtel wrote: post #48

One time, I was driving at night in the Sierra after a storm - roads were covered in snow. It's a drive I've made close to 100 times without incident. Going around a bend, I saw a car in the ditch on the outside of the curve. I stopped the car, put on the hazards, and went to see if there was anyone in the car. As I was about to cross the highway a car come sliding around the bend more or less sideways. I stopped and…

[deleted]

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#193

Post by iso1631 » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:08 PM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #94

emtel wrote: post #48

One time, I was driving at night in the Sierra after a storm - roads were covered in snow. It's a drive I've made close to 100 times without incident. Going around a bend, I saw a car in the ditch on the outside of the curve. I stopped the car, put on the hazards, and went to see if there was anyone in the car. As I was about to cross the highway a car come sliding around the bend more or less sideways. I stopped and…

low amperage perhaps

A lighting circuit will deliver plenty of amps if there's a low resistance path to ground.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#194

Post by giantg2 » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:09 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #183

giantg2 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how we could enumerate all the possible risks in a wilderness or near wilderness setting.

No, but you can know that A people out of 100,000 have died doing B making it less dangerous than C, more dangerous than D and 100x as dangerous as E and so on.

That might actually false confidence. For example, some activities might be comprised of more skilled people driving down the fatality rate. But another activity might have fewer or more manageable risks for unskilled people but have a higher fatality rate because more unskilled people do them.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#195

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:11 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #4

Do your research before getting into rivers. My local river has several gauges and hotlines you can call to get dam releases. They also have a chart of the water release amounts and if you could paddle/float/canoe/kayak etc. It even has a turbidity gauge that will show you if any harmful bacteria is present, we have issues with fertilizer runoff and e-coli. It's a rather mundane river in an area not as known as Glaci…

[deleted]

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#196

Post by lamontcg » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:12 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #186

I know someone who spent her twenties as an ocean lifeguard, including the real Baywatch, LA County Fire Department lifeguards. That's competitive to get in, and she's one of the few women to qualify. 6 feet tall, blonde, and muscular. Country girl who grew up on ten acres in Northern California. She spent years rescuing people who did stupid stuff. During the off-season for the beach she did off-road vehicle rescues…

I got certified as a cave diver in 2009 and I'm still alive. I don't break rules and keep things nice and mellow underwater. Same mentality as dealing with internet security or complicated changes in brittle codebases--think about all the edge cases.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#197

Post by ak217 » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #120

intrepidhero wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only takes 80ma across your heart to stop it. Mains voltage, in both the US and the rest of the world, can easily develop that kind of current, especially if there is moisture involved. And yet plenty of folks have accidental contact without lasting effects. Electricity is fickle that way. The difference between, no problem and totally dead can be subtle, random and not obvious. It all depends on the path the curr…

>It only takes 80ma across your heart to stop it In a lab, sure. In reality you need a lot of amps going into the body to get enough amps across the heart to screw with it. Defibrillators wouldn't be chock full of capacitors if that wasn't the case. Constantly repeating these sorts of misleading DARE-esque talking points is why nobody takes what the safety preachers have to say seriously. People find out through life…

> Defibrillators wouldn't be chock full of capacitors if that wasn't the case

Disrupting the heart's rhythm is way easier than restoring it. Especially if the disrupting current got in through punctured skin (which the defibrillator is not allowed to do)

> a couple amps from arm to arm

This is very bad advice. A couple amps at 220VAC is devastating if actually delivered inside your body. The reason people routinely survive mains shocks is the current doesn't actually get through due to intact dry skin, pure (poorly conducting) water, no path across their body, or no path to ground, which is all a matter of luck.

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#198

Post by the_af » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

poulpy123 wrote: post #154

the_af wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why McCandless was idolized (I do know there was backlash from actual knowledgeable people, like park rangers). He purposefully put himself in harm's way and didn't have any relevant skills that would have helped him survive. So what's admirable or romantic about the way he died?

You mistake idolization and fascination. People (myself included) are fascinated by his calling to quit society and to act on it, but I never saw someone idolizing him

Ok, so it's fascination. And a heavy dose of romanticization.

Yet McCandless was essentially reckless rather than heroic. It's not that hard to die if you put yourself in an extreme situation, without preparing yourself or having any safeguards. It's a form of Russian roulette rather than "rejecting society"; though, I suppose, suicide is the ultimate form of rejecting society.

I see that he liked Jack London. So do I! However, I must wonder how thoroughly he read London's work, especially his Klondike gold rush stories, because very often in the stories the main character ends up dead, defeated by bad luck and an unsympathetic wilderness which is hostile to clueless men. I mean, did he read "To Build a Fire"?

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#199

Post by MrMan » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:17 PM UTC

Arrath wrote: post #125

citizenpaul wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly the same thing happened to me. Except instead of the car missing me my brain told me perhaps from tornado safety training in school? If I dropped into the narrow V shaped drainage ditch so the car would pass over me I would live. It did and I did. I can still remember the tire passing inches over my face in slow motion as the car flew into the trees. I was fine. The driver was some kid that stole their parents…

Holy shit, glad you're okay. That was quick thinking.

[flagged]

Re: ‘That girl is going to get herself killed’ (2022)

#200

Post by justsocrateasin » Mon, Jan 09, 2023, 6:17 PM UTC

I recently went on a 60 mile gravel bike trip with a rather large group (50 riders) in the PNW. It was ~May of last year, and a freak storm came out of nowhere over the mountain, while we were in a large national forest. We were all wearing shorts (weather was in the 60s), and woefully unprepared as the temperature dropped into the 20s. I had thin gloves with holes in them. The storm dumped sleet on us and we had to descend a mountain in the snow for an hour in those temperatures, soaking wet. After 30 minutes I couldn't feel anything past my forearm, or below my ankle, and we had to bike about 2 hours in those conditions. The group got split up, and we all got hypothermia. it's a miracle no one died. I somehow got a flat tire and my sealant didn't fix it. Apparently I turned to my friend and asked if my rear tire was low and he lied and said it looked fine, knowing that if I stopped to try and fix it, I wouldn't have the coordination to actually repair the tire with how cold my hands were, and I would have really struggled to get going.

Entire thing could have been avoided if we had gone into it with the assumption of "When you enter the mountains, assume that any cold/wet weather is possible". Bring hand warmers and/or safety blankets, or even just a big roll of aluminum foil. Someone in the group had brought an amazon package specifically for that reason, and they shoved it in their jersey to block wind and keep their core body temperature up. They were fine, the rest of us were not.

EDIT: another storm I'm just remembering - not mine, but my dads. When he was 18 he was hiking on the side of a ravine in California with two friends. They were supposedly trying to find some caves in the side of the hilltop, and my dad grabbed some loose rock and fell - over 100ft straight down, another 200 tumbling at an angle. He spent 3 months in the hospital, mending a fractured skull and jaw, 2 broken vertebrae, and a whole lot of other injuries.