Lineman shocked

[ronaldrc]

I agree. You can lay 120 or even 277 in the grass all day long and it won't spark like that. The video has to be primary voltage that got crossed onto the secondaries. If nothing else proves this, anyone who has been shocked by 277 can tell you there wasn't a big arc like what you see at this guy's elbow. Just a whole lot of pain.

Mark

Been there and done that I became the neutral for a room full of 277 flor. lights,--just for about a tenth of a second
it hurts.

 

[wtucker]

I do know that this line of the trade is very dangerous, I googled it... the first 60 days live, in the field makes or breaks a person in this line of work.

Unfortunately, in this case, "breaks" isn't a figure of speech. Electrical accidents, particularly those involving high amperages and voltages, result in broken workers, broken lives, broken families.

 

[dbuckley]

Post deleted.

 

[hurk27]

I have actually watched a service drop short out and burn on the ground, and it was nothing like the video, well it kind of a funny story.

I got a call while I was on a service call, to stop by a house having a new roof put on and they needed me to disconnect the drop and remove the weather head and attachment point so they could replace the plywood and flashing around the riser.

Running a little late I got there and they had gotten a little rambunctious and one of the roofers was sitting with his legs off the roof, and he just cut around the riser and him self about 12" away, the problem was he was sitting on the board still around the riser, I walked around the corner just to see him make the last cut, and with nothing left to hold up the riser or drop it and him went for a ride, sparks flew, he landed on his shoulder which he broke, and the riser landed about 3' away, since the service conductors shorted, there was a loud hum then smoke and a few flashes as the wire burned away, but nothing like in the video, it eventually extinguished itself once the burning got to a point the wires fell apart, but then a thought of this hit me, instead of him on a roof but in a tree, and cutting the branch he was sitting on next to the tree trunk, I had the hardest time of not cracking up laughing.

 

[LarryFine]

... since the service conductors shorted, there was a loud hum then smoke and a few flashes as the wire burned away, but nothing like in the video, ...

That's the difference between a high-current fault and a high-voltage leak. To me, the blue sparks in the video were clearly due to a high voltage, not 120v.