Attention Darwin Awards Committee
We have a contender for honorable mention. Unemployed British man suffers broken relationship. Despondent, he drinks considerably more than a little bit. People he is drinking with appear to understand that man is too drunk to have any brains left. "Friends" dare man to do something stupid. Drunken fool decides to hang from 25,000 volt power cable.
But picks the one seven minute period that he can get away with the stunt because the power has been turned off.
Bare-chested and fuelled by drunken bravado, he dangles from a 25,000 volt power cable. If he had tried his foolish stunt at any other time, Shane White would have been fried.Fortunately for him, however, he had unwittingly picked a seven minute period when the power was turned off - the first in 15 months.
Oblivious to the danger, he leapt from a footbridge and, egged on by a gang of youths, hung from the railway cable for some time, eventually dropping to the ground only when his baseball cap blew off. His prank was watched by astonished passengers on a stationary train, one of whom took this photo. Opinion was divided over whether White was the luckiest man in Britain, or the most stupid. And the 22-year-old himself admitted: "It was completely and utterly idiotic. I know I’m a fool for doing it." White, unemployed, said he was so drunk on cider and beer that he had no memory of his actions until he saw the picture in a newspaper.
He turned himself in after seeing himself in the paper. He was given a four month suspended sentence.
Dumb Stuff, World news | Gaius Tuesday, 21 November , 2006
By Andy, Tuesday, 21 November , 2006 @ 12:03 pm
I think to be eligible as a technical matter you must die. Unfortunately, he retains the ability to infect the gene pool for future generations.
By BubbaB, Tuesday, 21 November , 2006 @ 12:10 pm
Um, okay, back to electrical basics, if he isn’t grounded, he couldn’t get fried… Maybe if he grabbed the cable while standing on the platform, but I suspect he had to jump off. Or am I missing something?
By Gaius, Tuesday, 21 November , 2006 @ 12:20 pm
Not exactly. At 25,000 volts, there would be a pretty hefty arc to ground. If he made a clean jump without violating that arcing distance, theoretically, he could do this and not get electrocuted. But from the photo, it looks like it’s not very far from the structure, or the ground itself.
(Arc distance would vary depending on the weather conditions).
So this is a yes and no situation.
By BubbaB, Tuesday, 21 November , 2006 @ 5:09 pm
Wow, what is the voltage in that wire? Isn’t it like 10,000 volts/meter to arc?
By BubbaB, Tuesday, 21 November , 2006 @ 5:19 pm
Oops, I meant to say, that is a lot of voltage in that wire, not “what is the voltage in that wire.” I asked the question re-read the post, and forgot to change my question to a statement…