Why! Did thjis Amish man not get electrocuted?

solarvic

An Amish friend of mine cut a tree down and it caught on a high power line. So he cut the tree up a little higher so it would fall off the power line. What saved him from electrocution? I ask him about it and he said he felt some tingling and the tree was sparking and smoking. I had a similar experience with a log skidder. I had a tree hanging on the powerline. I left the skidder against the tree and leaped off the back tire as far as I could and didn,t get shocked. Our crew went to the resturant and the lights were flickering in there. when we got back the tree was on the ground and the top op the tree burnt off. Probably 6 inch dia. where the tree burnt off. :Dsolarvic:D

Cariboocoot

Re: Why! Did thjis Amish man not get electrocuted?

All depends on how good the contact with the wires is and where the path of least resistance is. Chances are very good that any current flowing from the line went through the tree rather than the man.

CDN_VT

Re: Why! Did thjis Amish man not get electrocuted?

Like coot posted & luck , Probably good insulating shoes also.
I got a good flash down a hot stick , last time i did service pole work , bucket after that till I said that's a young mans job now .

10kva stick till rain turn to sleet .. 1960-70's area Ahh -poo

VT

bmet

Re: Why! Did thjis Amish man not get electrocuted?

What do the Amish cut trees with?

niel

Re: Why! Did thjis Amish man not get electrocuted?

probably an axe as i don't believe they use power tools, but solarvic can correct me on this as to what they used.

solarvic

Re: Why! Did thjis Amish man not get electrocuted?

Most Amish use gas powered tools and use chainsaws. I bought my last chainsaw from an amish man that sells Jonsered equipment. A lot of them have and use Honda engines. William was standing in the snow and was using a chainsaw. I told him if that ever happens again to get away from the tree and maybe if he is luck the tree might burn off on its own. If that doesn,t happen to call the power co. I was lucky when I got a tree against the power line that the top of the tree burnt off on its own.
When I worked in the woods a couple years was this. We were thinning out plantation pines and was cutting every other row so the remaining trees would have more sunlight to grow better. My friend would cut 30 or more trees in the row and they would remain standing as they were held up by the trees in the rows beside them. I would back the boom of the log skidder against the first tree and they would all fall like domino,s. One tree decided to go sideways against the power line. I was mighty scared and didn,t know what to do. I was setting on the log skidder and it was still running and I didn,t get shocked. The tree was sizzling and smoking. I was wondering if I got off the skidder in the snow if I would get fryed. Was wondering if I tryed to back away from the tree if I would get jolted some way. So I left the skidder against the tree, shut it off and jumped off the back tire and hit the ground runnibg. In my first post I mentioned a little about this but this is the rest of the story. :Dsolarvic:D

nsaspook

Re: Why! Did thjis Amish man not get electrocuted?

solarvic wrote: »

An Amish friend of mine cut a tree down and it caught on a high power line. So he cut the tree up a little higher so it would fall off the power line. What saved him from electrocution? I ask him about it and he said he felt some tingling and the tree was sparking and smoking.

The guy was really really lucky, I get the creeps just looking at utility power line shorts knowing the amount of power that it can deliver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVXi_0H_ZzM&playnext=1&list=PLF169C59708A5B9F1

inetdog

Re: Why! Did thjis Amish man not get electrocuted?

nsaspook wrote: »

The guy was really really lucky, I get the creeps just looking at utility power line shorts knowing the amount of power that it can deliver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVXi_0H_ZzM&playnext=1&list=PLF169C59708A5B9F1

Interesting. My guess is that the trunk finally got hot enough from the current flow that it generated a steam explosion. At that point it looks like a breaker on the HV line opened, but a few seconds later it tried to reclose automatically. The next time it stayed off.

westbranch

Re: Why! Did thjis Amish man not get electrocuted?

According to an old neighbour that is the 5 - 10 - 30 second delays IIRC that is meant to burn through the tree on the line. If it doesn't do it on #3 you are in for an extended outage...