biofeedback <aaah!>

[Dave Krooshof]

>The jibe to Eric was for his Vaccuum tube synths... touching those in just
>about
>anyplace would be ill-advised and possibly lethal !
Actually I did that year or two ago.
I was repairing my stereo tube amp.
As it is a weird Philips design (those guys made good but very weird
schematics, all wired 3D) I was on the phone with a guy who knew the thing
telling me what to measure to find the problem. The amp was open, on (for
measuring I need it on) and connectorwise it could only stand on it's side.
It fell over, towards me. I insictly grabbed the heavy thing with two hands
!WRONG! I dropped the phone. The techy heard me choke.
I got 380 volts DC between my hands!!! (Tube amps not only transform down,
for the glowing coils, but up too, for the kathode guns in the tubes.)
I felt the bass of the music I had on pumping through my arms, I felt my
heart, longs and troat and my swallow pipe cramp heavily. Blood pushed in
my head. I saw nothing but a _very_ bright white light. But I had the
consiousness to let myself fall onto the floor, thus being able to let go
of the amp.
I told the techy what happened, that I felt extremely lucky and stupid, and
that I was going to phone the hospital. They told me to come over fast, but
expected that I was doing OK. Weirdly enough, I went there myself with the
tram. It was only then that the cramps wore off a bit.
When I was in the hospital, I was told not to look at the print coming out
of the heart checker, but to lay still and relaxed. But as I have this
interest in bodyelectrodes, as you'll know, I did watch it from the corner
of my eye and studied the waves that were printed.
Shortly after, they told me I had a hole in a heartchamber. I said: 'those
are not my heartwaves, I know, I was studying them when they printed. It
appeared that the lady in the room next to me had the heart failure.
'Oops!'.
This was a very very odd experience, one onlike anything other, DC is very
other then AC I happened to touch lightly when I was a kid, and very unlike
static.
I still feel very lucky and ashamed. I only use one hand when near
potentially dangerous spots, the other is on my back, even when I'm
isolated well.
In my job I only use the isolating chair.
I never continued repairing my tube amp, and I quit building tube stuff.
I guess I have no after effects, apart from knowing what electricity is,
and why you can drive trains on it. It *is* a force. I felt that like
nothing else, I'm still ashamed to say.

Dave Krooshof


Now *very* tired
but into to the 'what do you touch and what not' subject.



--------------------------------------------
Dave Krooshof http://www.xs4all.nl/~krooshof
geluidstechnicus @ http://www.ahk.nl/the/theatertechniek_ov.html
webmaster: http://www.popronde.nl