Re: Oh Sh** Moment

["Robert L Bass" <RobertLBass@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I was working on a 440V 1500 Amp fire water pump in NYC 20+ years ago. Building super swore he shut off the power. Luckily I treat
> it like it was live anyway. My screwdriver slipped out of my hands and melted in half when it hit the power terminals...all I saw
> was a blue flash...I could not see anything but blue for hours...my fault for trusting someone else like that. I was connecting
> relays to monitoring pump run, and pump power failure for the gravity tank on the roof. I took the rest of the day off... :)

When I was a teenager a friend of my parents told me this story.  He was in naval engineering school during the start of WWII.
During a lab class the prof, a ranking officer, was lecturing the class on proper safety procedures when working on RF transceivers.
Like TV sets, they held major voltage for quite a while after being turned off.  One of the students, instead of listening, was
jiminexing around inside a 5 or 10KW radio with a big screwdriver when he hit something live.  According to my friend, there was a
loud bang and a blue flash.  The cadet jumped back and fell on his olson.  The front end of the screwdriver was gone.

The prof strode over and started yelling in typical military fashion, "What the frank are you going to do when you work on 50,000
Watt transceivers?!?

"Well sir, I think I'll start with a bigger screwdriver..."

I think he said they washed the guy out.  I really don't know if it was true or if he made it up but I got a kick out of it and
never forgot the smart-olson answer.  :^)

--

Regards,
Robert L Bass

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