High Voltage 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Fisrt of all, please apologize for my approximative english knowledge and feel free to rearrange the text in a more convenient language.
Second, I have heard this story 25 yaers ago, as I was studying chemistry at the university. It was a lecture on safety issues regarding electricity, the lecture was given by the man in charge of the safety at the "Energie Ouest Suisse; EOS company and was illustrated with plenty of exemples. So The story was certainly true, but I have no references. I remember only that there was a picture which described very well the situation mentionned bellow.
A man had his home on a steep valley in the Alps of Switerland, close to where are built very large concrete dams. In front of his home was passing a high voltage power line (220'000V). Due to the steepness of the place, the high voltage pole was placed somewhere below the house and so, depanding where you were standing, the copper wires were alomost at the level of your eyes.
Due to the configuration of the terrain, the copper line were passing a few meters above the road, nearby the house.
The man had a cherry tree, unfortunatelly, birds were eating the cherries. So he decided to cover the tree with a network. He took a long metallic (and conductive) pole, to install the network over the tree, from the raod passing by his house.
Unfortunatelly for him, the copper wires, with 220'000 Volts were not far away, so that by trying to do his business, the guy ended up coming in contact with the power line.
According to what was concluded, the guy never had any idea of what happened to him. The amount of electricity flooding through his body was so intense and consequently the heat produced in his body so large that he started boiling in a matter of second, was transformed in water vapor and exploded. They said that almost nothing was left.
Submitted on 07/08/2002
Submitted by:
Jean-Michel Zellweger (Switzerland)
Reference:
Local electricity company
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
|
