Every site I looked at concerning lightning safety contained the same warning - “Do not take a shower or bath or run water for any reason during a thunderstorm”. I have been able to find no examples of injury or death from this phenomenon.
Living in Georgia, where afternoon and evening thunderstorms are common in the summertime, we tend to disregard this “rule”. Otherwise you may not get to shower between May and October. I do tend to stay off corded phones, though. I have seen phones fried by a lightning stike and have received a slight shock from one during a storm myself. The risk there, though slight, is real.
No, you aren’t really showing anything. Except that it’s possible to write any kind of a story in a TV how.
Absolute B.S.!
As a boy growing up on a farm with electric fences, I can assure you that it is quite possible to complete a circuit by peeing on a fence. And you will remember it quite clearly!
t-bonham@scc.net - But an electric fence is usually elevated, before the urine sray dissipates the flow. What myth-busters tested was standing above the hot rail of a train. By the time it travels that distance, it’s no longer a steady stream, apparently.
An electric fence is a higher elevation than a train rail, therefore the “stream” hasn’t broken up by the time it hits the electricity. Lieu made no mention of peeing on a fence during a thunderstorm so I was assuming the urine was hitting the ground. Therefore my comment was a valid one.
I found this interesting .pdf with all kinds of lightning statistics in it. While it does confirm that people have died from “indoor-water related” incidents, it fails to give any good solid number (from my quick perusal anyway, there might be something nestled in there that I didn’t see.)
I found this interesting .pdf with all kinds of lightning statistics in it. While it does confirm that people have died from “indoor-water related” incidents, it fails to give any good solid number (from my quick perusal anyway, there might be something nestled in there that I didn’t see.)
Yes, I accidentally peed onto an electrified fence surrounding a pumpkin patch once and I can assure you it’ll zap your privates something fierce. Course, back then my “stream” resembled exactly that, instead of someone dribbling from atop a paintshaker.
I’ve never heard not to shower or take a bath in a thunderstorm, and we have many of them here. In the past month we’ve had thunderstorms a few times a week, at least. Some were quite severe. I’ve heard not to talk on the phone and of course to come inside, but other than that we don’t do anything special. We’ve had lightning strikes quite close before and we lose power from it pretty often. Maybe I’m just used to them. Every spring is tornado and thunderstorm warning season, sometimes we have a watch for one or the other more often than not.
Show. I meant TV show. But my typing skills (or lack thereof) failed me.
An electric fence is elevated, but only a foot or so above the ground. You are usually standing at least a foot or two away, so the urine stream probably travels about the same distance as if you were standing above a train rail, I’d think. Maybe they were standing on a station platform, several feet up and a ways away from the train rail? Then I could see that it may not longer be a steady ‘stream’. (But remembering the shock from the electric fence, I’d never even think of doing this on an electric train rail!)
I don’t think the “urine hitting the ground” enters into this. The circuit is complete in going from the electric fence wire up the urine stream, down your legs into the ground, and through the ground to the grounded side of the electric fence charger. And the shock comes as soon as that circuit is completed. The urine falling off the electric fence wire and hitting the ground doesn’t matter – you’ve already completed the circuit yourself.
