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Leslie

Leslie

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Eddie Wilkenson, 17, was electrocuted Wednesday afternoon when a lightning strike traveled through his home computer.

"I heard the lightning and I saw a flash. I felt a jolt go up my right arm and through my whole body," he told the Pensacola News Journal. "I couldn't move. My whole body was weak."


A few minutes later, he phoned his mother for help.


She called paramedics and drove across town to reach her son.


The family said the teen will need physical therapy to recover full use of his arm.
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http://www.wftv.com/news/9549689/detail.html

I've slacked off on getting off the puter in storms. Oops. Best unslack I think.
 
The catch is how come a mouse cord can take so much current when the cables are extremely thin.
 
It can't. But they can conduct the field enough to ionize the air around the conductor. I've dealt with a computer that was in a struck house, and talked with the 'expert' that inspected the house for the insurance company.
 
Are a cordless mouse and keyboard enough to save my ass? Or arm, in this case? (Of course, we don't get very many lightning storms here either...)
 
Get a cordless mouse. That way you only have to worry about the monitor exploding in your face or lightning arcing out of the piping and wiring in the walls. Lord knows a lightning bolt packs enough juice to arc and jump broad distances.
 
unclehobart said:
Get a cordless mouse. That way you only have to worry about the monitor exploding in your face or lightning arcing out of the piping and wiring in the walls. Lord knows a lightning bolt packs enough juice to arc and jump broad distances.
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I've been through that one. Set my damned kitchen on fire once.

Of course it didn't also scare me out of ten years of my life or so...
 
I'm really phobic about the kitchen and bathroom in lightning storms. Won't do dishes or take a bath or touch faucets at all really.

Should probably step that phobia up to sitting in front of the TV and computer too.
 
I alwaya blew off that "talking on the phone during a storm is dangerous" crap until I saw the Mythbuster's about it...of course that was on a corded phone.
 
There was a 911 show which ran around the same time as Unsolved Mysteries. A woman got fried while doing her dishes. That's what did it for me.
 
We got hammered with lightning last night. From the number and variety of sirens I heard afterwards, I'm guessing 2, maybe three houses near me took strikes.
 
Luis G said:
The catch is how come a mouse cord can take so much current when the cables are extremely thin.
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Just a thought..
It is not the voltage that does the damage but the amps....
 
highwayman said:
Just a thought..
It is not the voltage that does the damage but the amps....
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You do know that amperes are a measure for current, don't you?
 
Luis G said:
You do know that amperes are a measure for current, don't you?
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Along with voltage. The two are a diferent "measurement" of electricity, what I understand about it you cannot have one without the other...
 
AFAIK, you can have voltage without current, but you can't have current without voltage.
 
Professur said:
Voltage is potential difference between two points
Amps is electron flow.
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And it's the resistance that heats you up to smoking. If you were a better conductor you'd prolly be ok. :lloyd:
 
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