This is going off on a bit of a tangent to your question, but . . . if you are remembering an account of a child playing with a hairpin (or other moderately flexible piece of metal) and a live electrical socket and getting injured, the injury may have been a burn injury and not a shock injury. If the child was able to stick both ends of the metal into the hot and neutral openings at the same time, it would create a short and the metal would get very hot very quickly.
I bring this up because my father told me once that he had done exactly that when he was about 4 or 5 years old with a 120 V socket and a hairpin and he received a pretty painful burn before he could yank his hand away. He also said there was a scorch mark on the socket and the surrounding wall for quite a while after that, so apparently the hairpin got quite hot. -Camille --- Allen Tudor <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings all, > > I recall hearing accounts of children inserting a > hairpin, for example, into > an electrical outlet inside the home and receiving a > shock. For some > reason, I started thinking about this recently and > wasn't sure if I > understood this one-handed electrical shock > phenomenon. How does one > receive an electrical shock if the hazardous source > of electricity is > touched with only one hand and there is no solid > contact between that person > and ground? Let's assume for argument’s sake, that > the other hand is > touching nothing. The feet are insulated from earth > because the person is > standing on a non-conductive floor. Seems like if > there is no solid earth > or ground reference, there would be no current flow > through the body. Does > capacitance between the body and earth come into > play? > > Thought I would ask before conducting an experiment > at home. > > Thanks in advance. > > Allen Tudor > > _________________________________________________________________ > FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar – get > it now! > http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/ > > > This message is from the IEEE Product Safety > Engineering Society > emc-pstc discussion list. Website: > http://www.ieee-pses.org/ > > To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to > [email protected] > > Instructions: > http://listserv.ieee.org/listserv/request/user-guide.html > > List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html > > For help, send mail to the list administrators: > > Ron Pickard: [email protected] > Scott Douglas [email protected] > > For policy questions, send mail to: > > Richard Nute: [email protected] > Jim Bacher: [email protected] > > All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on > the web at: > > http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc > This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/listserv/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Scott Douglas [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
