7200 Volts Vs Log Truck

This happened Wednesday, July 23rd 2008, by the airport in Jackson , TN.
The driver was attempting to throw the logging cable over the logs to secure them. As you can see, he hooked the electric line instead!
He said the tires began to fry within seconds.. very lucky man he could easily have been fried himself!

um

....wow. I'm speechless.

Looks like that load made some pretty good firewood.

Nothing to mess with...

That is absolutely nuts. Never would have thought that could happen. I would have thought that the rubber tires would have insulated it. Guess thats a lot of volts, tho.

Joseph M. said:

That is absolutely nuts. Never would have thought that could happen. I would have thought that the rubber tires would have insulated it. Guess thats a lot of volts, tho.

Click to expand...

same thought--how did it jump the tires??? unless part of that same cable was laying on the ground--arcing

tires are steel belted...

olyman said:

same thought--how did it jump the tires??? unless part of that same cable was laying on the ground--arcing

Click to expand...

and steel conducts. Im no electrician. however as I undrestand it, up the voltage enouph electricity will travel through even great insulators like air; lightning for example. He is lucky to be alive and unhurt.

olyman said:

same thought--how did it jump the tires??? unless part of that same cable was laying on the ground--arcing

Click to expand...

Absolutely it will jump tires, steel belted as they are, their insulating quality is highly overestimated, in fact not to be considered insulaters at all.

Truck tires now are mostly all steel carcas not just steel belted and the rubber compounds with a lot of powdered carbon are only insulators to low voltage. You might have less than a 1/4 inch gap at the rim and another half inch at the tread surface.

Fire dept i work at resoponded to a crane on fire turns out operator got into a 13,200 line with the cable. Tires caught fire operator decided to get off machine he didnt make it. It was a bad scene 30 construction workers screaming do something. All we could do was keep people back till power was cut

Stay with it unless it catches fire then jump clear as far as possible but hop like your feet were taped together instead of running. As ridiculous as it sounds this can make the difference between surviving the voltage potential that is running through the ground for a fair distance away from the vehicle.

Ground gradient. Like ripples from a stone thrown in a pond. Or a bullseye with the center wherever the line is grounding. Connect the ripples by stepping and you get popped.

Well it would of been a nice throw!lol! Yeah I've seen many fires like this while on the fire dept, people screaming and yelling at us to put the fire out! Well our safety comes first, then yours, then your property! But its kinda hard to tell someone that when they are freaking out! Oh well, part of the business!

My town five years ago...yard waste / chips mulching facility.

Driver raised his dump bed, which was fine. Until he drove forward while dumping the load and into a cross-country three phase line that provides electricity to the next town over. Du'oh.



Wonder what cost more...replacing the truck, or the bill from the electric company...


Driver fortunately jumped safely away from the truck.


Many years ago we had a power company truck that fried themselves -- they were working on "tree wire" (insulated primaries) they were nervous about already. Had one guy in the cab to radio the foreman who was down the road ready to kill the power if something went wrong. Sure enough, as the lineman in the bucket was shifting the wire, the wire was broken inside the insulation and fell out.

The falling wire landed on their truck and arced a hole into the diesel saddle tank on their truck and ignited the leaking diesel. Guy in the cab called for the power to be cut and jumped clear, guy in the bucket dropped it to about 12' above the ground and jumped from there....neither one of them really want to ever be in a burning, energized truck again

olyman said:

same thought--how did it jump the tires??? unless part of that same cable was laying on the ground--arcing

Click to expand...

Yes there is resistance between the tires and the ground.

One type of jet at work has ground bonding cord from the landing gear to the ground below.
The engineering department got approval from the manufactor to remove them and in order to do that, we have to check the resistance from the rim of the wheel to the concrete ground using a true RMS electrical multimeter. If it meets or passes the tolerance specified in the engineering paperwork, the grounding strap can be removed.

It's for lighting strike protection on the ground, in the air the lighting just travels through the whole aircraft as designed and dissipates back into the air.

For every lighting strike call I get out on the line, I have to inspect the whole exterior of the aircraft, there is always a entry and exit burn mark.

stephen44 said:

This happened Wednesday, July 23rd 2008, by the airport in Jackson , TN.
The driver was attempting to throw the logging cable over the logs to secure them. As you can see, he hooked the electric line instead!
He said the tires began to fry within seconds.. very lucky man he could easily have been fried himself!

Click to expand...

Could you email those pictures to me...please

[email protected]

He must have one heck of an arm to pitch that chain that high! I am glad that he was not hurt.

Bob