Ground-fault interrupters in the bathroom. Lifesavers
Thanks Nick, I pray for her. I would trade my life for her own any day.
Cute. What a shame. RIP.
Electricity and water...never a good kix
Something is really suspicious here. 30 milli amps, (0.030 amps, thirty thousandths of an Amp) when applied across the heart, is minimum lethal amperage. BUT YOU NEED ENOUGH VOLTAGE to penetrate the skin to overcome its resistance. Dry skin can resist 75 volts in ideal conditions, 30 Volts or less is considered relatively safe.
NO WAY IN HELL is 5 volts from a cell phone charger enough to penetrate skin and cause death. For example, take a 9 Volt battery and handle it in the bathtub. It is DC, just like the charger output, but almost double the voltage, and capable of more than 30 mA, nothing will happen.
The only way I can see it happening is if the charger was plugged into an extension cord and she grabbed the 120 Volt extension cord side of the charger (where it plugs in) with a dripping wet hand. Previous posters were right in recommending a GFCI (ground fault breaker). They are required in all wet locations.
GFCI work by measuring not only total amperage, i.e. 15 Amps or 20 Amps, but also measuring difference between what goes out hot side and what returns to the box on the neutral side. If there is more than 5 mA (0.005 Amps, 5 thousandths of an Amp) difference, like when some current is going to ground through you, instead of returning to the breaker box, they will immediately trip off.
In most states you have to be able to show you can wire up a factory to pass an Electrical Contractors Exam. If you don’t pass the exam, you cannot legally even change out a wall receptacle in a house (there are a few small exceptions). So the system works to make it very difficult and therefore very expense to be a contractor...hence, rates well over $100/hour now.
As far as I know, there are no states with ‘limited’ contractors licenses, where they are limited to relatively simple 120/240 Volt work. If those licenses existed, perhaps this family would have been willing the pay the $50/hour (and maybe way less) to have a licensed person do a quick sweep of their house and change out defective hardware (which would including making sure there are GFCIs in the bathrooms, kitchen, basement, garage, and outdoors).
But that’s not the case, so most people (maybe not most FReepers, because most of us are real men, but most others), particularly metrosexuals, simply take what they get when they buy a house, particularly an older house...rather than take the risk of having a totally unscreened ‘handyman’ illegally do that work. And so we get these results.
There’s a lot to be said for wireless phone charging, available with many recent phones (directly or with an adapter). No charging wire ever has to be plugged into the phone.
5 volts are going into the phone, so that won’t do it. The charger is plugged into the wall and is carrying the usual 120 volts, so the CHARGER fell into the tub. How about some accuracy here?
Phones are smarter than the people.
14 and wise beyond here years?
Uhhhh,, NO.
RIP
Recent construction houses don’t even place outlets near bathtubs.
Clearly the government needs to install webcams in our bathrooms so they can watch us and protect us from things like this.
That’s incredible and so sad
Poor thing
I was in an old tile bathroom tub in gunnison colorado last summer and used my apple 6+ which was on a USB charge line while I was chest deep in tub
It tingled in my hand a bit but that was all
Again so sad.