Two people electrocuted in separate incidents

[Ingenieur]

A phone battery I have laying on my desk says it is 3.85 volts, charge volts 4.4 volts. Is that going to push enough current through a human body that is presumably in reasonable health condition to kill them?

Now if premises supply volts to the charger is somehow imposed on the charging cable (likely malfunction or even cheap non listed component) I can easily see that electrocuting someone.

not saying that is what killed her, only that it may account for the burns
the terminals are only mm apart
so on a wet hand it may see fractions of an Ohm
so large current, enough to burn

her body would be in parallel to ground (water/plumbing), so she would see a fraction of that

 

[GoldDigger]

not saying that is what killed her, only that it may account for the burns
the terminals are only mm apart
so on a wet hand it may see fractions of an Ohm
so large current, enough to burn

her body would be in parallel to ground (water/plumbing), so she would see a fraction of that

But neither the charger nor the USB or lightning connector outbound power from the battery are able to supply more than a couple of amps. And I really do not see a lot of current at only 5V DC.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[kwired]

But neither the charger nor the USB or lightning connector outbound power from the battery are able to supply more than a couple of amps. And I really do not see a lot of current at only 5V DC.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

And then push that current through human flesh that is pretty high resistance, even when sitting in the tub of water it will still at least be several hundred ohms wouldn't it?

 

[Jraef]

I read an article about the girl in the bathtub and thought it didn't make much sense how they were focusing so much on the cellphone. The theories in this thread regarding how she might have gotten 120V to herself in the tub make a lot more sense. Extension cord... :happysad:

But "Electrocuted holding a cell phone!" gets a lot more clicks...

 

[jaggedben]

But "Electrocuted holding a cell phone!" gets a lot more clicks...

Yes, money matters more than truth these days.

 

[wtucker]

According to the article, there was a burn mark on her hand. I don't understand how that can happen with anything plugged into a cell phone. I wonder if there is a 'rest of the story'?

Yup. It's in the story: The girl's grandmother, who lives in Texas, told the local TV station that's what had happened, and they picked it up and ran with it. But, as the story notes, it happened in New Mexico, not Texas, while the girl was visiting her father. So, she had a burn on her hand, and the phone was in the bathroom. Was the burn fresh? Was it an electrical burn?

What this story doesn't say (but I saw elsewhere) is that the medical examiner hadn't ruled on the cause of death.

So, this is just grandma jumping to conclusions.

It takes 0.1A to cause fibrillation, assuming (generously) 500 ohms resistance of the girl's body in water, it'd take 50V to kill her. But the charger only gives 5V, and it should have been on a GFCI (was it?).

BTW, cell phones don't cause your car to blow up at the gas station, either. It's the static discharge arc when you touch the pump handle after sliding out of the car seat.

 

[gadfly56]

Yup. It's in the story: The girl's grandmother, who lives in Texas, told the local TV station that's what had happened, and they picked it up and ran with it. But, as the story notes, it happened in New Mexico, not Texas, while the girl was visiting her father. So, she had a burn on her hand, and the phone was in the bathroom. Was the burn fresh? Was it an electrical burn?

What this story doesn't say (but I saw elsewhere) is that the medical examiner hadn't ruled on the cause of death.

So, this is just grandma jumping to conclusions.

It takes 0.1A to cause fibrillation, assuming (generously) 500 ohms resistance of the girl's body in water, it'd take 50V to kill her. But the charger only gives 5V, and it should have been on a GFCI (was it?).

BTW, cell phones don't cause your car to blow up at the gas station, either. It's the static discharge arc when you touch the pump handle after sliding out of the car seat.

I see someone else is a Mythbusters fan!

 

[Jraef]

I see someone else is a Mythbusters fan!

I miss those guys already. I met them once at their favorite film site (the old Alameda Naval Air Base) about 4 years before they packed it in, they are just like they appear in the show; Jamie is quite and reserved, Adam is animated and outgoing (the younger crew was off somewhere else). But even by then they were getting a little tired of it. Adam said they never thought it would go on as long as it did.

They would have TOTALLY taken on this issue I think. Did the "new" version of the show ever make it? I know they did a reality competition show to pick the new hosts, then I never heard any more about it.

 

[gadfly56]

I miss those guys already. I met them once at their favorite film site (the old Alameda Naval Air Base) about 4 years before they packed it in, they are just like they appear in the show; Jamie is quite and reserved, Adam is animated and outgoing (the younger crew was off somewhere else). But even by then they were getting a little tired of it. Adam said they never thought it would go on as long as it did.

They would have TOTALLY taken on this issue I think. Did the "new" version of the show ever make it? I know they did a reality competition show to pick the new hosts, then I never heard any more about it.

Very briefly they had a Hollywood vs Engineers show going, where the teams had to do a build to achieve certain milestones. I think it had half a dozen episodes.

I miss them too, but when it stops being fun you have to hang it up. You don't want to bring your audience down because it's now just another job. I still don't understand why the axed Grant et al for the final season or so. I thought the A team B team format worked well.

 

[Jraef]

Very briefly they had a Hollywood vs Engineers show going, where the teams had to do a build to achieve certain milestones. I think it had half a dozen episodes.

I miss them too, but when it stops being fun you have to hang it up. You don't want to bring your audience down because it's now just another job. I still don't understand why the axed Grant et al for the final season or so. I thought the A team B team format worked well.

It was a salary negotiation issue gone awry. The three of them took a page from the Friends and Big Bang cast tactics to stand firm for all of them getting raises, and Discovery called their bluff.

 

[kwired]

I first heard of the girl electrocuted using cell phone in a tub on a radio talk show. Yesterday they happened to revisit that subject and apparently there was an extension cord between the phone charger and wall receptacle involved and it apparently had exposed conductor on the cord which she very possibly touched while in the tub.

 

[dkidd]

Police released the last photo taken by a 14-year-old who died after she was electrocuted in a bathtub while using her plugged-in cell phone, according to local reports. Authorities believe Madison Coe took the photo and sent it to a friend before she died, KCBD-TV reported. The photo, released by the Lovington Police department at the family's request, shows a picture of Coe's cellphone displaying a text message with a photo of a cell phone charger plugged into an extension cord, the station reported. "When you use and extension cord so you can plug your phone in while you're in the bath," the text message said. Coe, who lived in Texas with her mother, was visiting her father in Lovington, N.M., ...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/cf052225-11d9-37d8-ac75-7570a20cf99f/ss_police-release-last-photo.html

 

[JFletcher]

The charger was plugged into a frayed extension cord... she grabbed the frayed part while in the tub.

https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=eef_1500481764#eFVS6db2dULkLVGL.01

Explanation starts at 6:25. And tho it's liveleak, this link is SFW.