Posted on 04/23/2012 2:14:19 PM PDT by Lmo56
EVANSTON, Ill. (CBS) — An Indiana man died overnight, after coming into contact with the electrified third rail as he urinated on the Purple Line ‘L’ tracks in Evanston.
The man was at the South Boulevard Purple Line stop around 11 p.m. Sunday with two other people when he came into contact with the third rail, according to CTA spokeswoman Lambrini Lukidis.
The man, Zachary McKee, 27, of Ossian, Ind., was pronounced dead at Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston at 11:52 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
It turned out that the man had climbed down to the tracks to urinate when he fell onto the third rail, according to a news release from the Evanston Police Department.
Authorities have not said whether the man urinated on the third rail.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicago.cbslocal.com ...
BTW - if he was peeing on the third rail, it would prolly be like when a dog pees on an electrified fence ...
The gene pool just got a little cleaner.
Hold muh beer—’cuz I can’t.
Would a woody have saved him?
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Well, this guy died when he FELL ON IT.
But as we all know, the trick to successfully PEEING on the third rail is to use the muscles God gave you (albeit for a different purpose), and only release urine in short spurts, none of which bridge the entire distance between you and the rail.
And besides, that impresses the hell out of the ladies. :)
“the Purple Line...”
I bet I was purple, and blue, black and charred.
I guess the episode of Mythbusters, where they “proved” this couldn’t happen (peeing on an electric fence), had better be revisited.
They didn’t use enough juice!
Don’t wizz on the electric fence.
i peeeeedddd on an electric fence......didnt know it was there. Out shining deer one night when I was 14. Put my 22 down and I really had to let one rip. When you are 14, you dont just pee......you pee for distance . Well, I “found”the electric fence my grandpas neighbor just put up the day before on the edge of his cultivated corn field. Apparently, he put up the fence for the cows to use the field. It turns out he wasnt much of an energy conscious person as he left it on overnight when the cows were in the barn. I am lucky I was just dealing with an electric fence.....as my third leg felt like it was blown up with an M-80. I couldnt even scream for several seconds.....I just fell to my knees and curled into a ball while my cousin stood next to me asking “ what what what what what”? I cannot imagine urinating on the third track.
Does this qualify for a Darwin Award?
The mythbusters are WRONG on many myths.
I have seen (with my own eyes) a dog electrified peeing on a electric wire.
Also, their episode on Tesla technology was DOWNRIGHT STUPID WRONG.
They set the resonance unit up 90 degrees in the WRONG direction on the bridge but still managed to get an effect so they listed it as “plausible”. If they had simply placed the resonance generator in the RIGHT direction they would have been shocked to find Tesla was right! But they are literally that dumb, when it comes to matters of science, rather than the standard “whoooweee, let’s blow this up”.
Maybe they were the techs at Dateline who “helped” the truck explode on camera.
Was alcohol involved?
Had to be. Regular piss doesn't carry electrical current. Physics/Biochemistry 101.
LOL ping...............
Two lessons:
(1) Diesel/coal driven trains were safer.
(2) It’s best to pee in discontinuous spurts under all circumstances.
This is shocking news!
Any residual effects you’d care to share with us, Sparky?
I’m afraid to ask why you thought of me first...
“Regular piss doesn’t carry electrical current”
Conductivity is a non-linear function of electrolyte concentration in solutions and could be used as an indirect method. The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility of urine conductivity measurement, which is a simple, cheap and not time consuming method, in the evaluation of renal functions. Seventy-two patients whose primary diseases were not taken into consideration were enrolled in this study. First morning urine specimens were obtained from all the patients and evaluated for osmolality, conductivity, pH, specific gravity, protein, creatinine, urea, uric acid, glucose, sodium, potassium, chloride, inorganic phosphate and calcium levels. There was a significant positive relation between osmolality and creatinine, urea, sodium, potassium, chloride, inorganic phosphate, uric acid, conductivity and specific gravity. Conductivity was also determined to be positively related to osmolality (r: 0.390, p < 0.01), sodium (r: 0.326, p < 0.01) and uric acid (r: 0.345, p < 0.01). The patients were grouped as those with a urine osmolality of less or more than 290 m Osm/kg. H2O (group A and B respectively). Urine conductivity was 6.84 +/- 5.35 (0.16-23.2) mScm-1 in group A and 10.6 +/- 5.25 (0.12-192) mScm-1 in group B. The difference was statistically significant (p = 0.005). When the spectrum of conductivity values were evaluated separately in each group, 74% of the patients in group A and 33.9% of the patients in group B were determined to have a conductivity level of less than 7.338 mScm-1. In conclusion, urine conductivity has a positive relation with osmolality. In addition, while osmolality and specific gravity are effected by many non-electrolyte molecules, conductivity is only related to sodium and uric acid concentrations. In addition, urine osmolality and conductivity levels could be used to interpret the concentration of uncharged glucose molecules. These results suggest that conductivity could be used as a parameter in routine urinalysis.
There’s a Mythbusters episode that covers this... what got this guy was physically coming into contact with the 3rd rail when he fell on it....
What a horrible way to go. To be honest, I’d already intended to say that, and THEN realized what an awful joke that could be. Oops.
I’ve actually done this.
Many years ago, as a high school kid in a rural area. Had to go, walked up to a thicket of underbrush that completely concealed a live cattle fence. It was also quite damp underfoot, as it had recently rained.
I’m standing there happily doing my thing, when every muscle in my body seized up hard. Then it stopped, and started again. I got hit twice before it dawned on my that there was a cattle fence in there. Between pulses of current, I turned away from it. The direction I approached it from, there was no way to see it or any of the warning markers that I found afterward. Where I was, it was totally hidden from view.
I don’t know what ‘Mythbusters’ said about them, but peeing on a cattle fence is just about what you’d expect- a thoroughly unpleasant experience.
RIP.
He should have minded his P’s and Q’s.
MONTESANO, Wash. (AP) – Authorities believe a Washington man was killed by accidentally urinating on a downed power line after a car crash.
Grays Harbor County sheriff’s Deputy Dave Pimentel (PIM’-en-tel) said Monday 50-year-old Roy Messenger was not seriously hurt after he collided with a power pole Friday and called a relative to pull his car from a ditch.
However, family members found Messenger electrocuted when they arrived.
Pimentel says Messenger apparently urinated into a roadside ditch but didn’t see the live wire. The urine stream likely served as a conductor, allowing the electricity to reach his body.
Pimentel says there will be an autopsy but burn marks indicated the way the electricity traveled through Messenger’s body.
I reckon this takes ‘pissing on the electric fence’ to a whole other level!
They said it all depends. Normally, the stream will not be continuous since it breaks up into droplets, and hence will not provide a conductive path.
Chuckle, Chuckle.
You mean killed? Was it a standard electric fence or something stronger?
I don’t know how he was able to come into contact with the “third rail” because everyone I’ve seen had a cover to prevent maintenance people from accidentally coming into contact with it. The pickup shoe fits into a slot.
Between pulses of current,
The “pucker factor” is high in this story....
It’s time for another “Bad Idea-Really Bad Idea”.
Bad idea: Taking a pee on the El platform.
Really bad idea: Taking a pee on the El roadbed.
I remember that occurring to me at the time, after I realized what had happened and had recovered a bit. I was about fifteen and had no previous experience with cattle fences, beyond seeing one from time to time and figuring the smart thing was to just leave it alone.
It seemed sensible to me that folks who keep large animals really don’t want to electrocute them, they just want them to not escape. :-)
No damage, no burns that I was aware of. It made all my muscles seize up and on the second pulse, I emitted this sort of clamped-jaw groan. I had no idea what was happening until the second hit.
“...and only release urine in short spurts, none of which bridge the entire distance between you and the rail.”
I believe Mythbusters showed that a stream of pee naturally breaks apart into droplets, breaking any circuit. Not that I would volunteer.
What was Tesla correct about with a resonance generator?
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