Hold my beer and watch as I....

[Tupac]

if either of you had been taught the dangers of electricity, then it would have been yours for turning the crank.

Im 16, and i don't understand how it could kill somebody if it just zapped him a bit.

Can someone explain?

[Jayhawk]

Im 16, and i don't understand how it could kill somebody if it just zapped him a bit.

Can someone explain?

Here is the important question, would you have messed with it.

But to answer your original question, admittedly electricity has always been a little confusing for me, but it's a difference between the paths the electricity travels.  In the first example, the current would run between his thumb and forefinger, a short distance. In the second example, it would have to run from one arm to the other, crossing right through the chest and heart.  However, I'm not sure the amount of current you could muster from a hand crank would be enough to do that much damage.  Now sticking wires into a 110 outlet, you don't have to be an electrician to know that's a bad idea.

[sluggish]

Here is the important question, would you have messed with it.

Of course would have.  Especially after his teacher made light of it.

[Jayhawk]

Of course would have.  Especially after his teacher made light of it.

Damn that teacher for trying to make class a little more entertaining, he should focus on boring slides, lectures, and textbook reading.  What was his lecture on that day... electricity maybe, were you paying attention or drinking the blue liquid from the cabinet because he used that in an experiment once?

[phatzo]

dont drink the bromothymol blue.

[CAP1]

Im 16, and i don't understand how it could kill somebody if it just zapped him a bit.

Can someone explain?

read this.  http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_3/4.html

 in the instance of putting one lead on one nipple, and the other on the other nipple......the current would've directly crossed his heart....and killed him.

[dkff49]

  However, I'm not sure the amount of current you could muster from a hand crank would be enough to do that much damage.  Now sticking wires into a 110 outlet, you don't have to be an electrician to know that's a bad idea.

It really does not take much electricity to mess with the electrical rhythms of a human heart. The biggest factor there is the fact that he had the electricity running straight through his heart. Most people can stick their fingers in a 110 socket all day long and never do anything but get a little tingle in there hand but grab a hold of one wire with one hand and the other wire with the other hand and have a big enough wire to get the right amperage and you could have a nice nap afterward (maybe permanent).


Either way I am pretty certain that most times in any shop class the students are informed to not mess with anything that was not explained to them it's proper operation. I am real certain that this teacher did not tell him that the proper location to connect the leads was on the students nipples. No one can watch all 30 or so students every second of any class period and once in High School a student should have enough mental capacity and respect to be able to follow the rules without having a teacher breathing down his neck. As far as I am concerned by High School age has been reached there is no such thing as teacher/parent fault but stupid student not thinking. It is at this time that the students should be somewhat prepared for the real world and not be micro-managed the way they are in elementary schools.

I say give the dumb bellybutton a bigger charge and thin out the gene pool a little further. What scares me the most is idiots like this are going to come around my house looking for my daughter and I may have to physically remove the little bastage from my premises.

[SirFrancis]

The kids a moron...so he sues the school.  World would be better off if he fried himself. One less idiot in the gene pool.

 

[Plawranc]

I am an Australian teenager.

Therefore if there is something incredibly stupid or uncomprehendable as anything other than incredibly dangerous, I will do it for a laugh.

But then there is just sheer utter moronic stupidity, the guy should have died. Less paperwork and trouble for the "Ambo's" and the administration,its his own bloody fault. The school is not accountable as he knew full well that what he was doing was dangerous and painful, If he didnt know this what the hell is he doing in a High School Science Class. And as the school would have taken any learning difficulties and so forth down on record he would not have been placed there if such a state of affairs existed.

So, who is to blame, the Student and his Parents for failing in common knowlegde that most AMERICAN five year olds know ( I am taking a Jab at your education system).

[sluggish]

So... The school, which the kid is forced to attend, has no responsibility to the safety of, and more more importantly, since it's a SCHOOL, has no responsibility to teach the students about electricity...

The school is going to lose and lose big.

[Mar]

Where I come from we have a word for this sort of thing...


RETARD


That school is in no way, shape, or form responsible for what that IDIOT decided to do to himself.

[sluggish]

Plus.. The fact that the teacher had "resigned" shows that the school knows what's up and is already attempting damage control.  The real losers in this will ultimately be the community since government employees like public school teachers and administrators do not bare personal financial responsability for their actions.

[Dragon]

The fact that the teacher resigned may explain why the kid was able to do what he did.  Was the teacher out of the room?  If so, then yes the school system has some responsibility. 

If the teacher was in the room and was working with other students and didn't see what the idiot was doing, then the system is not at fault.  If he was was not in the wrong and was asked to resign for damage control, then he should sue the system for loss of livelihood.


The article didn't mention anything about going after the other student, the one who plugged in his friend.  Why not?

[Dichotomy]

Sluggish,

It's thinking like that and nobody feeling like they are personally accountable that is a MAJOR problem in the educational system in this country.  The kids were doing something they should have had enough common sense not to do and they're blaming the school? Give me a break.  I rail against school systems trying to parent my kid.  I've done it for 17 years and feel like I've done a pretty good job.  I do NOT need a government institution to tell me how to raise him and make him sign contracts for what he can and can not do outside of school.  If he screws up he has to face not only the administration but ME.  I've been lucky.  Got a good kid with a solid head on his shoulders and I can guarantee that he wouldn't have been involved in such a bone headed stunt.  If parents took responsibility for their kids actions across this country I doubt we'd have to deal with metal detectors at the front doors and roving police patrols in the halls.  

I'm not a big fan of 'when I was growing up' stories but I do remember facing my parents when somebody (usually another parent) called them and reported that I was doing something stupid.  Most times I wasn't but I was a bit of a trouble magnet back then.  When I WAS screwing up I got my butt handed to me big time.  

Put yourself in the teachers place.  Could you micromanage the activities of a room full of teenage boys?  I know I couldn't.  I've had a house full of teenagers all summer long and there were several instances where they tried to skirt around my rules with the 'well you didn't say we couldn't' excuse and they wound up getting their butts handed to them and a healthy dose of pool cleaning and / or yard work.  And you know what?  Nobody got hurt or in any trouble with anybody besides me.  But it was physically impossible to be on top of them all of the time.  It's sad that I have to be a father figure to a bunch of kids whose parents ignored them growing up.  And I hope that being around me for a rather short period of time gave them some sense of personal accountability.  

The stupidity of those kids caused the problem not the 'negligence' of the school or the teacher.  Now his life is probably ruined because nobody knocked their little heads together when they were younger and taught them that just because they thought they could get away with something didn't mean it was a good idea.  

[CAP1]

The fact that the teacher resigned may explain why the kid was able to do what he did.  Was the teacher out of the room?  If so, then yes the school system has some responsibility. 

If the teacher was in the room and was working with other students and didn't see what the idiot was doing, then the system is not at fault.  If he was was not in the wrong and was asked to resign for damage control, then he should sue the system for loss of livelihood.


The article didn't mention anything about going after the other student, the one who plugged in his friend.  Why not?

OR THE parents who managed to let their precious son go through 16 years of life without at least ingraining the fact that electricity WILL kill you.

 when i was in high school, i had no clue how electricity worked. i did however, know that it could, and more than likely would kill me if i screwed with it.
 it wasn't school teachers that taught that to me. was my grandparents/.