 Re: To touch, or not to touch
There was a guy about a year ago in USA died in the tree after the tree made contact with energized wires below him.
What happened was he cut a chunk off and it bombed down onto the wires and wedged in the tree as well.
He was stuck up there about an hour they reckon and then lost consciousness.
This was unusual and rare as electricity is supposed to go to ground and with him being above contact point he was energized. A very peculiar scenario.
But ropes, trees etc are conductive.
Also, air is considered an insulator to some degree. The distance between wires and even the distance or height of insulators on poles is no coincidence. The air space is the insulator ... however stay with me on this one.
Example on a 11kv line (common in burbs).
The air around the wire is energized, just like step potential when a boom truck is grounded. The air say 1" away from the wire might be 10kv and the air 2" away 5kv and the air 6" away 500v
Now if you are close to the wires and and breach many of those air insulators by extending your arm toward the wire electricity may flow via your arm instead of air as your arm is a better conductor. This is why you seldom see birds sitting on HV, they're feet get toasted when they come in. They're actually breaching the air insulation. |