A few years ago, I asked the question "Have you ever had an electrical shock" and was "shocked" at the response. Nearly everyone responded "Yes"

This week's question is a variation of that question. Have you every been shocked and how?

We'll since I posted the first "electric arc" story for the last question and was quickly "humbled" by the amazing and impressive stories many of you shared about causing sparks (in a very big way for most of you), I might as well give my equally meager story about being shocked too. Then I can step back and watch the much more impressive stories roll in from all of you. Mine was simple (and stupid in hind site)

Years ago, I grabbed an extension cord at home that had a cut in the insulation. - oops! That's it. Nothing spectacular.

And now on to everyone's much better stories....

Nothing too dramatic or exciting...shocked doing home wiring projects, yes more than once but that was years ago. And since you didn't specify, I am shocked a lot during winter due to static electricity.

School project were I had to hook up a fan. After doing some tests I disassembled it. At the time I was done my fellow students came in and I wanted to demonstrate the setup so I hooked up the fan again only this time without paying much attention. Accidently came in contact with the 230V as I bumped into the table and a wire came loose and touched me on my hand. First and only time I got shocked luckily.

Only 120V, and it was so long ago I don't even remember the details.

Wow, where do I begin. Well, more time than I can count on oscilloscope cases connected to 500VDC armatures, 700VDC inverter busses, 460VAC Line voltage and Inverter motor connections.

In the early 90's, I was in a textile plant and walking up to the open drive cabinet which had a 575-volt feed to it. I tripped into the enclosure because in the plant's infinite wisdom they had laid down a 4" angle iron to protect the enclosure from errant fork lift drivers. The only problem was that if it was ever yellow with black stripes it had turned the same color as the rest of the floor, and was not easily seen by someone not knowing it was there. I slid down the 575-volt incoming power. I was not overly hurt by the shock, but my legs were a bit cut up from landing on the bottom edge of the cabinet opening.

A couple times actually. Once while running a 277 V. conductor to a light - LIVE, a long time ago - really dumb of me. The other was landing a wire on a panel.

The branch breaker was off but of course, my finger conveniently found the adjacent breaker position that had no breaker but it had a nicely energized bus/stab. That one was 480/277V but I'm assuming since I wasn't well grounded and contacted just one phase, it was probably 277 and only enough current to hurt and create the sound of expletives in the air. Much older and wiser now.

In the late 1980s working for a contractor, sitting on insulated chiller piping in the penthouse ceiling at a large computer chip facility in Essex Junction, Vermont. The task was to connect a line of luminaires to an existing 277 volt circuit in an overcrowded j-box. Not once, but twice I received a shock from the neutral splice. The 'official' facility rules prohibited this and all other live work. But it was not the contractor but the facility management that made compliance with this all but impossible. Another task that was regularly done against the rules was plugging bus taps into live bus bars. The reasoning was always "This has to be done, now and you can not kill the power". I'm sure these days energized work permits would be produced for the managers to sign (away their careers). I don't know as I haven't been there in decades.

Working inside a control panel that was live, 240 v 3 phase. The engineer who did part of the wiring used some 3 conductor SO cord for one of the 3 phase motor leads. That means that he used a green wire for one of the live 240 v legs, and NO ground wire at all. I was pulling on the green mystery wire to see why it did not go toward the grounding point on the panel, when it came out and touched the side of the box. I was briefly shocked but not burned. I had a very precise conversation with the engineer about wiring colors.

Apologies - posted in the wrong thread - moved to "Have you ever caused an arc" topic.

I have had several 120 Volt shocks over the years, however my worst experience was back in 1982, I was a 2nd year apprentice working alone in a small manufacturing facility. I was performing a temporary connection using captire for a 600 Volt welder. It was a Square D QMB panel, energized of course, however I had the selected breaker in the off position. I have to be honest I was not paying much attention to what I was doing as it was extremely humid in the plant. I went with my hex key wrench to loosen the breaker terminations so that I could make connections. Unfortunately I put my wrench on the terminal of an adjacent breaker that was energized supplying another piece of equipment in the plant. I was thrown back and landed against some steel barrels. I will never forget this act of carelessness as it could have cost me allot more than being thrown back against some barrels. It was late in the day so I packed up my tools and called it a day. Never reported to my supervisor. There was not much of OHSA back in those days. At least up here in Ontario

There was one time that I was NOT shocked - Quite happily so.
BUT I DID knock off power to the entire plant when I shorted out the 6600V with my Fluke 77