Posted on 08/08/2020 10:42:09 AM PDT by Mrs. Warrior
We had a single wide mobile home while stationed in Michigan on recruiting duty in the early 90's. The Army would pay to move it, so we thought it would be like having our own home (boy, were we mistaken!). We had it moved down to Fort Rucker, Alabama, our next duty station after my husband went to OCS and was commissioned after nine years of enlisted service.
I had been needing to have a hysterectomy. I was scheduled to have the surgery while he was away for more training, so my brother came to stay with us and help care for the kids. We were in the mobile home park on post.
Our first indication of a problem was after we set up a wading pool by the trailer hitch. We had two pretty pre-teen daughters then. Two teenage boys came over to meet them. I felt that our girls were to young and I wanted to run the boys off politely. The boys were the first ones in the pool, and they touched the metal frame of the home and started to yell and jump out. They got shocked! Well that was one way to run them off!
Later, we were watching television and the screen made a popping sound and went out. In time, we learned that the contractor we hired to set up the home, the electrical guy instead of grounding the house to the earth, he wired the home to the home!
Shortly thereafter I had the hysterectomy. The pain was so intense. I was in the hospital room all alone. A woman came and sat with me during the night. I wanted to thank her the next day, I inquired about her to the the nurse, and she told me no one was there. I think the Lord sent me an angel to keep me through that time. I was discharged with the instructions to get plenty of bed rest and to stay off my feet.
That night after I went to bed it rained for the first time since we arrived. I took my pain medicine and drifted off to sleep. Suddenly, I felt like something slammed into me and then I was lifted up off the bed and was jerking around! I felt like I was having a heart attack! I dropped back down into the bed. I thought that must be some powerful pain medicine!
I called for my brother and told him about it and since I was having chest pains he called an ambulance. I was standing at the doorway watching an EMT push a gurney towards the house, it dawned on me that a metal cart might not be a good idea to touch a live house! He brought the gurney to me, it touched the house and he started to yell and he let go of the cart. There were burn marks on his hands.
I told my brother to get to a hotel with the kids. At the ER I had an oriental doctor and he could not understand how my house could shock me. The nurse told him he had another shock patient, this time it was the EMT from the gurney! I think he wound up believing me. It turned out that my internal stitches had been ripped open. (I later had to have surgery to separate the tissues from where it attached itself to my intestines.) The doctor sent me home as I had no signs of a heart attack.
Later I was using the microwave oven, it started to make an arc of fire. A current went trough the room, our hair started to stand up. I called the fire department. When they arrived they were wearing metal tanks on their backs. The chief was a little vexed with me, we got pulled off another job; “I see no fire”.
I told him about our electrical problems, He said he would have to see for himself about the microwave. I got my family outside. Suddenly there were two firemen stuck at the door, they were yelling not to touch each other. The other firemen gave them a boot in the rear, and they all started to tumble out. They were ripping off their tanks. They had set a shock wave through themselves.
The chief was sitting on my lawn, he had taken off his helmet, I went over and told him that having his hair sticking up like that was a good look for him, and “if you put a little hair gel on it you could look very “punked””. “You know I hate to say I told you so, but I just can't help my self”.
“That is a dangerous situation” he exclaimed and he told his men to turn off the power. We had to be put up some where else. “Do any of you need to go to the ER?” I asked. That poor doctor would be really confused!
I called my husband, he called the contractor, he came back and rewired it. When the contractor came over he got behind my kids, and asked “you don't want to sue me, do you?”. I told him to get away from my kids. “If you want to talk to me, then you talk to me face to face”. “My kids were not injured so I won't sue.”
I had a lot of memory and digestive problems after that.
We would often drive to Panama City Beach, the ocean was a clear green, it was euphoric to be in God's ocean.
I always move back into an ungrounded mobile home before it gets fixed. Then I write incoherent blogs about it.
That was quite a story! And I do believe it was an angel.
Getting shocked once should tell you to get it fixed.
Going back again and again knowing you will be shocked tells me you are a dumbass.
Wow. What a story! Glad you made it OK.
You were lucky. People get killed every year over ungrounded mobile homes.
There is a mobile home park outside of Ft. Rucker, which has at various times housed Bush Jr., Al Gore and Dan Quayle.
Do you write for Harlequin?
Going back again and again knowing you will be shocked tells me you are a dumbass.
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So true. First shock’s a warning that you’re playing Russian Roulette with electrocution.
Are you making this sh*t up????
I don’t see how anyone could not call an electrician after the FIRST shocking....
Enjoy reading these life vignettes. Thank you for posting them.
Welcome to Free Republic
Thank you for sharing. That was great to read.
I had my stomach cut open from one side to the other, when my stitches ripped, I had blood seeping from my wound. I got my kids enrolled in school every step I took I felt faint. all our money was spent on that move. I took care of my kids and got them to a safe place, every word we say we have to give an account for to God so i will wish fo god to bless you
I am USPS letter carrier, I had one trailer that when it rained I would get shocked when I touched the mailbox. I told the owner he needed to ground it but he never did. He lost a TV and microwave first, then a window unit and refrigerator before he finally grounded it.
In 1969 we bought a new Skyline and had it set south of Kearney Nebraska. On the first night we were cooking and I smelled gas. I got down next to the stove and felt the gas lines. None of the connector joints were tight, just finger loose, Either factory of dealer screw-up. But we were moments from being blown up.
She's been here almost a month, what took her so long.....
Welcome to FR!
I see the welcoming committee is already here to give you their warmest greetings!
The reception isn’t always this shocking, think of it as a rite of passage. I, for one, enjoyed your story and hope you stick around.
I thought it was humor. It was like two stories wrapped up in a whirlwind.
There were some medical problems....sad.
And then it was mixed in with a story about a trailer house that shocks everyone but nobody ever thought to maybe look into it. Instead, the story tells of numerous people continually getting shocked to near death and not one of them thought maybe it oughta get fixed instead of killing people.
*shrug* I like a good story.
Sometimes facts get in the way of a good story, sometimes smarts come after the painful lesson.
In Scientology, there’s a treatment for the trauma from an injury called a ‘touch assist’, when a Scn kid bang themselves up they are told to touch it back, to recreate the circumstances of the injury to bleed off the psychic charge. Get in the position they were when they banged their head on the tree and gently go through the same motions.
It actually works, they experience instant reduction in pain.
That being said, I was at a party and wandered into the kitchen and came across a woman repeatedly touching the pan used to make popcorn.
‘*ouch* *ouch* *ouch*’
‘What are you doing?’
‘*ouch* I burned myself on the pan, I’m doing a touch assist. *ouch*”
‘That’s nice. Shouldn’t you turn off the burner and let the pan cool down?’
‘*ouch* You can do that???’
‘Yes. the goal is to re-crate the circumstances, not recreate the injury.’
‘oh’
This was an adult! Go figure...
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