What happened here.

[La Poste]

A backpacking student was electrocuted when he touched a live socket as he sheltered from a storm on a beautiful Thai island.
Charlie Thomas, from Sale in Greater Manchester, was killed instantly when he put his hand on the wet power outlet set in a tiled pavement outside a department store on Phuket.

British backpacker electrocuted and killed in Thailand after touching live power socket while sheltering from storm | Mail Online

The article says it was an electrical socket, reading this I wonder what the voltage was at the socket, surely more than 230 Volts, I mean he must have just leaned on it with one hand.

What do you think?

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[malcolmsanford]

La Poste ...................the give away is THAILAND ​nuff said

 

[La Poste]

Ok but what do you think happened, I mean if the guy touched a live wire at 230 Volts and was standing on a wet pavement with water flowing past his toes and this water then flowing onto the neutral or earth would this be enough to kill him?

Instant death, I would have thought the supply needed to be more than 230 Volts to cause this.

Edit, not even sure if they have an earth circuit in Thailand.

 

[Plonker 3]

Why do you think we are starting to insist on RCDs for protection these days?

 

[malcolmsanford]

A combination of factors will kill you, why do you think we tend to keep touch voltages in the UK to 50v maximum, we know that as low as 10mA will give you a very nasty experience, and above that start heart fibrillation.

We are talking about Thailand where it is hot and humid and the guy was sweating most likely and so his resistance would be drastically altered. He may have also had an underlying health problem or heart ryhthem

We are talking Thailand where chances are there was no earth on that socket and there could have been a small fault on the circuit, unfortunately the poor lad was a combination of many factors to give him the "Biggie" for him any way

 

[Silly Sausage]

Remember, It's not the Voltage that kills you, it's the current flowing through your heart.
Humans, water & electricity - not a good combination.
Google 'fatal current' for further reading.

 

[trev]

Never having been to Thailand is this the norm over there "Socket in a tiled pavement outside a department store"
It sounds pretty bad and obviouslywas for the guy in question.

 

[La Poste]

I'm just wondering how the circuit was completed.

His hand touched the live, his feet or some other part of his body was touching the pavement, the pavement was wet with water running into the socket and touching the neutral.

Electricity flowed up his arm, through his body, down to his feet and then through water back to the neutral.

Does this sound plausible?

Obviously no RCD protection or if there was initially it was probably later removed from the circuit because it kept tripping.

 

[trev]

No it doesn't. Think about it La Poste, where would electricity flow through you if you touched a live part?
You would become the ..... ....?

 

[La Poste]

But it has to enter your body at one place and exit your body at another.

I thought that's how electrickery worked, it has to make a circuit and if this guy had his hand touching a live part then some other part of his body would need to be the exit point, perhaps the current flowed across his heart in the process but there must have been an exit point and the current must have somehow found its way back to complete a circuit.

I wonder what the earthing system was here, perhaps he had bare feet.

 

[trev]

Yes but if it's stotting down with rain his footwear would have been wringing wet

 

[sedgy34]

wrong place at the wrong time i guess

 

[La Poste]

There was a question posted on another forum, A Thai forum from a guy who wanted to know how to avoid being killed in Thailand whilst on his holidays, killed by electrocution I mean.

I'm thinking maybe spend the whole holiday walking around in a rubber suit with gloves and socks all made from rubber but that's not really practical.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks.

 

[trev]

How about don't go to Thailand. That said, in our apartment in Florida there were sockets about 200mm above hand basins

 

[Guest111]

Any current above 50milliamps will kill you,I did give the figures and the why,s and wherefores in a previous post,this is because it causes ventricular fibrillation,in laymans terms the heart flutters instead of beating normally and at that speed the blood is not pumped around the body resulting in death.A shock is more likely to prove fatal if the contact and earth are at 2 different points e.g touching a live part whilst stood on a concrete floor.If for example you touched a live part with your finger but an earthed part with the thumb of same hand whilst stood on an insulating surface eg wood or carpet you would receive a shock and probably burns however the chances are it would not be fatal.