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

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

#321

Post by weaksauce »

atoav wrote: post #291
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…

> If anyone would like to explain why that didn't kill me I'm all ears. What kills people is current, not voltage. With AC having your heart beat 50 times a second can also cause you to die hours or even days after receiving a shock, but even that requires enough current to flow and cross your skin resistance. Go to ghe hospital even if you are alive and feel well after an electrical shock! Your heart may have suffer…

I'd hazard a guess that the person is using 120vac 60Hz instead of 230/50. 120vac is not as dangerous as 230 w.r.t. this kind of accident. I agree that they seem to have only held the fixture with one arm and probably standing on the leg with the arm outstretched or at least biasing weight to that leg to help reach. the current likely didn't go deep and didn't go across the heart. i agree that there wasn't a hard connection but must have had a path through the fixture that wasn't pure... likely a wire rubbed off the coating a bit but not quite fully so there was not a good connection to shock him with much current.

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

#322

Post by hinkley »

gernb wrote: post #167

I feel like the phrase "you only regret what you didn't do" is survivorship bias. I'm pretty confident the majority of the people that die in these situations were not happy to die.

"Nobody lays in their deathbed regretting..." Not everybody gets a deathbed. Some people get an 'oh no' and then it's lights out. Some people just get the lights out.

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

#323

Post by sacrosancty »

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…

[dead]

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

#324

Post by newaccount74 »

atoav wrote: post #291
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…

> If anyone would like to explain why that didn't kill me I'm all ears. What kills people is current, not voltage. With AC having your heart beat 50 times a second can also cause you to die hours or even days after receiving a shock, but even that requires enough current to flow and cross your skin resistance. Go to ghe hospital even if you are alive and feel well after an electrical shock! Your heart may have suffer…

> With AC having your heart beat 50 times a second can also cause you to die hours or even days after receiving a shock

Can you point to any source for this? I have not been able to find any report of someone suddenly dying from cardiac problems days after an electric shock. It sounds kinda plausible, but I wonder if it is an urban legend.

People lose limbs or die from severe electric burns, and people can die from cardiac arrest immediately after being shocked, but are there really cases where people have cardiac arrest days after an electric shock?

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

#325

Post by wccrawford »

kkielhofner wrote: post #277
shortstuffsushi wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind sharing, what was the reason to get in the car with them to drive? Were you planning to head out to an event like a hike or something that you had arranged online, but hadn't known the people ahead of?

I wish it was anywhere near that "respectable". I was visiting a college town for an away football game. This was the night before the game and some of my friends and I went out. I met these two guys at a college bar my friends and I went to. My friends were going back to our hotel but these guys (who we had all met maybe an hour before) had invited me to a party. It was still fairly early and I thought "Neat, this w…

I'm a pretty big introvert, and even I would probably have at least considered going with them to a party. And one of my reasons would not have been "they might try to rob me". So I think you're putting far too much blame on yourself.

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

#326

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

This reminds me of a time when I went to the grand canyon with some buddies. We stayed there for a few days. Then made the drive back to the airport to fly home

Along the way to the airport some asshat setup traps along the highway. These were boulders the size of soccer balls scattered along the highway. We don't see these coming as there's a car in front of us

Next thing you know that car in front is veering out of control. One of those boulders that hit his tires flies off towards us, but luckily we veer and it misses. That could've easily broken the windshield and killed one of my friends.

We end up having another boulder on the highway that pops one of our tires, and we veer out of control.

Had there been a semi on the highway, or we had veered off in the opposite lane, we could've all died that day. Luckily this wasn't the case

Our car was the 2nd of 3 cars that got into a boulder accident

We later filed a police report to the person who setup traps on the highway. I got a letter in the mail he went to served a year in jail for this

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

#327

Post by FactolSarin »

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…

It's the volts that jolt, but the mills that kill

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

#328

Post by kirse »

wcarron wrote: post #261

I would like to say that I'm generally a pretty experienced outdoorsman. I camp, hike, backpack, snowshoe, boulder,sport climb, used to snowboard extensively and do whitewater rafting. I've summitted Mt. Washington, NH in late October, done plenty of hikes from Death Valley and the Mojave to Sequoia NP, to the bright angel trail, etc. Enough to say I've got some experience, and done my fair share of risky stuff. Most…

the vast majority of people are unable to handle themselves in nature

Thing is eventually everyone gets spanked by an unknown-unknown that reveals their unpreparedness in a specific area, you just pray God decides to give you a break.

To add to your "summit fever" comment, if there's any general principles worth knowing it's 1) Remain Calm and 2) Adventure with others; if you choose not to, have a means of contacting them

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

#329

Post by newaccount74 »

dguest wrote: post #103
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…

I worked the lowest paying job in a ski lodge one winter. One day while waiting in the cafeteria line, one hand on the stainless steel counter, I noticed that I got a bit of a shock from the steel railing on the other side. There was also a stainless fryer on the counter, but insulated with plastic legs, so I did some experimenting by completing the circuit a few ways: - Counter to rail: weak shock - Counter to fryer…

This sounds like the counter was picking up static electricity from somewhere. Touching it will shock you momentarily, but it's not dangerous.

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

#330

Post by [deleted] »

chaps wrote: post #260
dragonwriter wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, its “the occurrence of a rare event is an indication of the existence of the conditions in which that event occurs in that time and place, so if you have evidence that such an event has recently occurred, you should treat the place where it did as a place where that kind of event has an elevated likelihood of occurring”, which is far more specific and actionable than “better safe than sorry”.

This is a lovely example of HN pedanticism.

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