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 Examiners 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 ...
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 sheriffs 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 didnt 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 Messengers 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.
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