[BC] My near-death experience

[Mike McCarthy]

Well...that applies to many things.

Years ago I was at home disconnecting antennas due to an approaching 
storm    Just as I pulled the last PL-259 off a radio, I saw a flash, boom 
and I went flying across the room with my arm leading the way. I already 
knew not to hold the radio and connector at the same time. (I didn't know 
to just leave them alone until the first rain...). But who said anything 
about holding just the connector....??!!

While I still had feeling in my hand, I was a little groggy from the sudden 
stop at the end of the unscheduled flight across the room.

FF 30 years....and I was working at one of my AM's this past Sunday which 
suffered some damage the week before.  Between lines of severe storms, I 
decided to replace the burned up static drain choke.  Since I didn't have 
any idea as to whether the choke was open, I decided to bounce the tower 
ball gap with my foot (hands in pocket) and see if there was any charge on 
the tower.  BBZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTT.  1/2" BRIGHT BLUE sustained arc for about 
30 seconds.

After making sure I didn't fill my pants (I was less than a minute from 
grounding the tower to execute the work), I quickly packed everything away 
in the ATU (a full sized fiberglass shelter building) and headed back to 
the well grounded TX building.  Turns out a cell had developed not far from 
the site and moved right over us pre-precipitation in that time frame. The 
TX's and other interior protection systems were arcing like mad with each 
strike. I just sat in the middle of the room and watched the light 
show....glad to know I was still there to see it and then replace the coil 
an hour or so later before the tornado spawning storms approached.

MM

At 04:30 PM 3/10/2009 -0700, Glen Kippel wrote
>Last Wednesday I went up to the KWXY transmitter site with Glen Barnett, the
>owner, to do a little maintenance on the old transmitter.  He was also
>concerned about an inability to get the power up; he was concerned about a
>current imbalance on the plate transformer.  So I opened up the back,
>defeated the interlock and checked the transformer primaries with a B&K
>clamp-on ammeter.  Sure enough, there was some variance.  He suggested that
>I check the secondary wires going to the rectifier stacks.  I checked these
>and one of the legs didn't seem to conform in ratio to what the primary amps
>were showing me, so I reached in to try again.  Apparently my arm bumped
>against the transmitter cabinet, because there was a flash of light, a "pop"
>and suddenly there was no feeling in my right hand.  Also, the main circuit
>breaker tripped.  I dropped the ammeter and tried to massage some feeling
>into my hand.  Most of the fingers came back to life in about 20 minutes,
>but the thumb had no feeling in it at all, and, as I am quite fond of having
>an opposable thumb, I decided to not do any more transmitter work and seek
>some medical attention.  After making sure that the transmitter was running
>OK, we went to the emergency room.  Bummer.  Anyway, aside from a little
>stiffness in my thumb, and some ecchymosis in my forearm, I'm fine and it
>looks like I'll recover.
>
>Moral of the story!  When you stick your hand in a live transmitter, keep
>the other hand in your pocket!  If I hadn't followed that rule, I might not
>be here.  The good news is, now my wife can use me for a night light.