The Mythbusters episode “Peeing on the third rail” showed that it is possible but unlikely that a person urinating on the electrified rail of a subway car could be electrocuted. The problem seems to be that the urine stream breaks up into droplets on the way down and there is no continuous path of current from the rail to the body.
I am reading “Dead Men Do Tell Tales” by William Maples. In the book, he claims that a famous New York transit official (or was it a politician?) often told the story of man being electrocuted by relieving himself at a subway station.
The question is, does it happen? Has it happened? The folklorist on Mythbusters claimed that it is a classic urban legend.
Perhap’s it is true and the people from Mythbusters missed it.
I saw that episode, and the Mythbusters were pretty convincing. Unless you were kneeling down next to the thrid rail and whizzing, the stream would, indeed, break up into droplets–hence nothing to conduct the electricity as you said. So, I’d have to guess that the NY transit official was propagating the UL.
For research, you could see how close you need to get to an electric fence before peeing on it became a bad thing.
From the inimitable Beavis and Butthead:
When I was young and had no sense,
I took a whiz on a 'lectric fence.
It hurt so much; it shocked my balls,
And I nearly crapped in my overalls.
[sub]Apologies if B&B copied it from someone else.[/sub]
Well, I can offer one case of peeing on an electric fence resulting in a shock.
Our old collie, over 15 years ago, was witnessed by me to wizz on the wire, and definitely reacted very negatively to the experience. It took a while to coax him out from under the porch. And it was the last time he ever lifted his leg to pee that I saw again!
Seriously, while it may be unlikely that the stream will stay intact enough to transmit electricity from the rail to the glans, why chance it?
My thoughts exactly. 
Because Danger is my middle name.
Ahem. Thy Master speaketh
For what it’s worth, I was electrocuted once when I threw an empty coke can onto an electric fence on a humid day. The current traveled four to five feet through the disturbed air.
Sure, a third rail’s potential is several thousand volts lower than that of an electric fence, but I could see how a current could travel from drop to drop of an electolyte-rich liquid. Also, the urine would eventually heat up enough to boil which would make the air even more conductive.
Note to self: It’s okay to pee onto an electrified surface so long as you first sniff around and don’t detect the odor of boiled urine.
Nitpick: Evidently you were not electrocuted, because that means killed by electricity.
When I was visiting Boston about 15 years ago, one of the colleges there (MIT, I think) had a display with a stream of water like from a drinking fountain and a stroboscope. You could vary the speed of the strobing, and at the right rate, the drops just seemed to freeze in air. They kind of wiggled a bit, but stayed in the same place and with roughly the same size. I was surprised at how regular the breakup of the stream into drops was. Changing the strobe speed a little, they’d slowly move back or forward. Without the strobe, the stream looked continuous.
… or maybe it was a trick, and when the strobe was turned on, they also tampered with the stream somehow.
…but I don’t think it was a trick.
Yes, you do get a shock from peeing on an electric fence. I watched a friend do it when I was a teenager and we were out hiking. There is no question in my mind that he got a hefty shock.
My freshman year in college, several of us managed to convince a very drunk and obnoxious jerk that it would be A Good Thing for him to whiz on the sparkplug of a running lawnmower. The jolt knocked him down and I would almost be willing to bet that his johnson sucked the last few drops back in.
The dumb things that we do when we are young. I’m surprised anyone ever lives long enough to vote.
OWWWWW! I don’t think I can get that drunk. I’d pass out first.
Yeah, it’s happened in Chicago. Lee v. CTA, 152 Ill. 2d 432 (1992).
I admit that the Illinois Supreme Court was, um, somewhat euphemistic about the exact nature of Mr. Lee’s contact with the third rail, but I remember this case. It got some attention in the local press, legal and otherwise. Also see:
http://www.state.il.us/Court/Opinions/AppellateCourt/2003/1stDistrict/December/Html/1023614.htm
Ouch!
Ain’t law fun?
Correct. I was shocked, shocked I tell you!
Why bother with urine when you can have fried vomit
An internet classic:
[Monty Python]I got better.[Monty]
From an electric fence? Through the air? I doubt it. Air is a good insulator; it would take much higher current than that of an electric fence to jump over 5 feet of air.
I can’t really explain it either, but it happened. It was in summer and the farm was just a few miles from the coast and Galveston Bay, so the temperature and humidity were probably both in the 90s. Also, there were lots of cattle around that tended to get out of their pastures, and Uncle Leo was a fairly bullheaded guy. I wouldn’t have put it past him to use the hottest fence charger that he could find.
I don’t believe it. I have an electric fence, and it’s attached to metal fenceposts with insulators about 4" long. If it could jump 4-5 feet (which takes a huge voltage), then it would simply be leaking to the fenceposts. I’ve never seen an arc through air from an electric fence longer than an inch or two.