Blog 277

Well it was my first time getting bit by 277 and I relived it all day, thinking how did this happen. When I got off the floor it felt like a truck had hit me. My foreman, Gerry was cool and tried to calm me down telling me about the three times he had been nailed... and tried to laugh his way through it with me which was cool because I was so strange about it, still in shock (no pun here). Even now it's difficult to recall the whole thing. It just happened out of nowhere.


So at about 8:15 this morning I was on an 8 ft ladder and checking a circuit to see if it was alive or not. I had to install a 2 x 4 light fixture in the ceiling. Took out my meter even though I thought it was dead just to check the three conductors-- hot, neutral and ground. I checked hot to ground (green wire and black wire, hot) and meter read 290 volts. That said everything that I needed to know and that it was alive and powerful. However I wasn't sure if my meter batteries were dying because I had left meter on previously. So, I decided to test the hot to neutral (white wire) which is the same reading as ground. Just being ultra cautious at this point. Should have left it alone, called it a day and found the breaker to kill circuit. So as I was uncapping the white wire, somehow my right finger came in contact with the hot and ground and bam!-- I was on the ladder for maybe 8 seconds unable to pull away and the electricity traveled through me and I yelled, shaking. I remember thinking "fuuuuck" when finally my knees gave out and gravity pushed me off the ladder, breaking the electrical connection and I fell to the floor in a daze.