Peter Lambrou, Ph.D.
Dad and the electric drillI was about 14 years old when my dad was replacing a light fixture in the garage. I was assisting by holding parts, or handing him tools. I’d seen my dad work on dozens of projects of all sorts and he’d often cautioned me about such things as not standing below potentially falling objects, keeping my fingers from being too close to a pinch point, or keeping clear of something heavy, or precariously propped up. This day he was standing on a step-ladder while working on the light above his head. He was using a metal-cased Black & Decker drill.
He was drilling to secure the wires of the light fixture, when suddenly he began to shake, his hands were frozen with involuntary muscle contraction grasping the metal casing of the drill. I stood there confused for what seemed like minutes, though actually only seconds. He jerkily turned his head toward me and with a quivering voice he forced out, “Don’t touch me! Kick the ladder, kick it, kick it Now! Suddenly I realized he was being electrocuted.
I was wearing tennis shoes. I did what he said and kicked the ladder over. He fell to the ground with the drill still in his hands, the short-circuit had been broken. He sat up on the garage floor silent, slowly moving his head back and forth for a minute, and I was still unsure if I should touch him. Finally, his head must have cleared and I knew he was OK because he began to curse. Eventually, he stood up and said to no one in particular, “I thought I flipped off the G**-damn circuit-breaker.”
My Dad taught me a lot of skills and imparted valuable, practical knowledge. Both of us learned a valuable lesson that day, ‘always double check to ensure a circuit is actually dead.’ Sometimes a circuit-breaker is mislabeled or not functioning. Many years later when I was in the Navy, they showed us a video that drove home the point, it was called “110 Volts, Your Deadly Shipmate.”