Wednesday 1 September 2010

Everything’s Bigger And Better In The States…

…even the Darwin Award candidates. Not content with attempted spider-flambe, they have to go one better:
An American student whose heart stopped after he deliberately electrocuted himself in a science class is suing his teacher for not warning him it was dangerous.
Good lord, what was he, five years ol…

Oh:
Kyle Dubois, 18, is also taking legal action against the school district and the city of Dover in New Hampshire.
*sigh*

Well, at least there’s only one idiot in the clas…

D’oh!
Dubois attached an electrical clamp to one nipple while another student attached another clamp to the other. A third student plugged in the cord.
What are friends for?
Dubois was critically injured and his legal team claim he has suffered permanent brain damage.
How in the hell can they tell..?

16 comments:

Ross said...

I imagine his nipples must be pretty sore too.

Captain Haddock said...

What a complete Tit ... :) :)

Angry Exile said...

"How in the hell can they tell..?"

I was wondering exactly the same thing. Hey, do you think the phrase, 'Guys, watch this,' was part of events?

nbc said...

Sadly, he's not a Darwin contender as he's still in the gene pool.

Hopefully, he'll have better luck next time.

NickM said...

OK,

I guess it's 110/120VAC over there but our 230VAC is usually not a big deal if it doesn't pass through the heart. Nipple to nipple is therefore a very bad idea. as is hand to hand or similar.

Nick M, BSc (Physics), MSc (Astrophysics). And oddly enough I have dealt with experimental rigs at very high tension and guess what? Not a shock in my life. Apart from small ones from hand-rails on steps in John Lewis.

Macheath said...

I'm sure there's a "How many...light bulb?" joke in there somewhere.

Thanks for the link.

microdave said...

"How in the hell can they tell..?"
Easy - "doctors drilled a hole in his skull"

microdave said...

Talking of Darwin Awards, I've just seen this at the Mainly Fail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1307975/Woman-dies-stuck-lovers-chimney-tried-break-home.html

Truly bizarre...

Anonymous said...

Only 80 Milliamps required to stop the human heart.

Drummed into me whilst doing C&G electronics.

Macheath said...

nbc, he may still be potentially in the gene pool, but if his idea of a neat trick is wiring his nipples up to the mains, I'd say his chances of finding a fellow-human willing to procreate with him are probably pretty slim.

microdave said...

@ Macheath - Oh, I don't know...
He might find several equally dumb females, and with a few bits of wire they could make a Ring Main....

Anonymous said...

@Rightwingnut. I think you will find it takes considerably less current through the heart to stop it - about 6mA I think. One of the reasons for the lower voltage of the supply in the USA, so I was told many years ago, was that, generally, getting electrocuted would not provide a fatal current though the ticker.

Maybe Mr. Dubois was patriotically demonstrating this fact by wiring up his tits to the mains and living to tell the tale. If a patriotic imbecile in this country had tried this, they almost certainly would have won the Darwin.

JuliaM said...

"Hey, do you think the phrase, 'Guys, watch this,' was part of events?"

Preceded by 'Hold my beer and...'

"Apart from small ones from hand-rails on steps in John Lewis."

I only get small shocks from the prices in John Lewis...

"Talking of Darwin Awards, I've just seen this at the Mainly Fail..."

Oh, yes! As I was reading it I was thinking 'This MUST be a US story'. And shore enuf...

"...and with a few bits of wire they could make a Ring Main...."

LOL!

David Gillies said...

80 mA? More like 11. "Eleven mils kills" was the mantra we were taught in the electrical safety lecture we had to attend when I started my MSc in electronic engineering. So a hundredth of an amp is enough to cause ventricular fibrillation, which if not halted is invariably fatal. If you get a good conduction path going (e.g. if contacts pierce the skin) then you can get a fatal shock from 12V DC.

microdave said...

So my friends 100mA RCD is useless, and all the 30mA ones in domestic boards are as well...

We did have a 10mA one at a boat yard I worked at, but it was so sensitive practically anything would trip it.

On second thoughts these are acting against earth faults, which are probably less likely to make a path straight through the heart, than via the nipples....

What a crazy thread topic!

David Gillies said...

Nah, a human body is a load that runs from the double-figures kilohm up to the megohm range, depending on skin type, time of day, whether you're wet or not etc.. A faulty earth path will usually be much lower resistance. 100 mA of earth fault protection is fine. The problem is if you crowbar yourself across a mains supply like the hero of this story: the breaker does not see plugging a human in as a fault condition, any more than it sees plugging in a toaster as a bad thing.