Water Tap Shocks Australian Girl

[Iron Woode]

This is such a sad incident.

http://nationalpost.com/news/world/...o-australian-girl-causing-catastrophic-damage

An 11-year old Australian girl is clinging to life after receiving a massive shock of at least 240 volts from an outdoor water tap as she went to turn off a garden hose.

“She’s suffered a catastrophic brain injury, which won’t bring her back to me ever,” said Lacey Harrison, the mother of the injured girl, Denishar Woods. “I want my baby back, I want my baby back,” she told reporters outside of Princess Margaret Hospital, where the girl was taken Saturday from her home in the Perth suburb of Beldon.

While her mother expressed the hope she would survive, she was not optimistic about that or about the quality of her life. “There’s nothing of my little girl left in there,” she said Friday morning. Doctors took her off life support Friday and she was reported to be breathing on her own.

Exactly what caused the outdoor pipe to become electrified has not yet been determined. But a fault in a neutral conductor supplying power to the property is the likely culprit, Michael Bunko, a director at Western Australia’s electricity regulatory agency, told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Malcolm Richard, chief executive of Master Electricians Australia told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that if a neutral wire breaks, “it can result in voltage being seen on everything that’s earthed [grounded] in the house,” he said. In the presence of water, the consequences can be magnified, he said.

Denishar Woods was watering the family garden at the time in the public housing complex where the family lived. At some point, the power to the house went out. When the mother went to a meter box to turn the power back on, she took a small shock, the ABC reported. She notified authorities.

But when her daughter walked over and gripped the tap to turn off the water, a massive jolt of current, estimated at between 240 and 250 volts, surged through her body.

Once at the hospital, the girl was placed on a cooling pad to protect her overheated organs.

But after an MRI, doctors told the family the girl had suffered extensive brain damage.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

a massive jolt of current, estimated at between 240 and 250 volts

Voltage and current are two different things. Damn Drunk Aussies.

 

[Iron Woode]

a massive jolt of current, estimated at between 240 and 250 volts

Voltage and current are two different things. Damn Drunk Aussies.

I blame a simple-minded public.

people can't tell the difference between voltage and current.

 

[Skunk-Works]

You never ground to the water pipe. Do so and you're asking for trouble. That's what the issue is here.

 

[Captante]

Bummer

 

[Greenman]

You never ground to the water pipe. Do so and you're asking for trouble. That's what the issue is here.

It's actually required around here as part of a complete grounding system.

 

[Humpy]

Stopped reading at “I want my baby back, I want my baby back,”

 

[skull]

It's actually required around here as part of a complete grounding system.

Yup ground the water line and two ground rods 6' apart outside. Most the time people don't even know they have a bad neutral because the water line takes it over to the neighbors water ground. Had one where they were working on the copper water main and started getting shocked when they cut it.

It gets interesting when the neutral goes out and theres no water bond. Then the two legs start fighting each other through electronics and such. Had one on a cistern tenant said the lights were all going nuts going super bright and dim then popping. Took out her tvs, stove, well pump, fridge, washer and a bunch of lights.

Not sure what happened here possibly the utilities into the house were switched to plastic and it didn't make it to the neighbors.

I got blasted this week changing some things around in some bedrooms first two I checked were dead fixed the issue 3rd bedroom I got distracted talking to the helper and got hit pretty good across the heart holding the metal part of the outlet with one hand and brushing the hot with the other hand. I need to be more careful before I kill myself didn't feel too good for about an hour after that one.

 

[shortylickens]

If you GROUND the water tap it should not shock YOU. the current should go to ground.
Metal is a conductor. Skin is an insulator.

So, what REALLY happened here? Cuz someone is holding back an important detail I think.

 

[FIVR]

Are australians known to be good engineers? When was the last time you let an australian fix something of yours or used an australian-designed or engineered product?

 

[NAC4EV]

You never ground to the water pipe. Do so and you're asking for trouble. That's what the issue is here.

Many supply companies absolutely insist on it.
I have installed many electrical services and always grounded the neutral conductor to the utility watermain or well casing,
It is part of a well grounded system.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This seems like such an odd situation, clearly a bad ground somewhere. There's normally redundancy though as you get a neutral from the power company (which is tied to ground at each pole) and then you have the actual house ground going to the water line and grounding rods. Wonder if somehow someone put the hot on the water line, but even then it would just short out to ground. Something is really bizzare about this whole situation.

Which reminds me, I do need to fix my own ground, had my main valve changed and the plumber used pex for that section of line so I'll need to run a new ground so I can get it past the pex. I think this is something a lot of people overlook if they get any plumbing changed. You can't assume all plumbing is automatically grounded as there could be a pex section between copper sections and the incoming line.

 

[AdamK47]

Are australians known to be good engineers? When was the last time you let an australian fix something of yours or used an australian-designed or engineered product?

Last Friday when I took it out for a spin after keeping in the garage for the Winter months.

 

[Skunk-Works]

Many supply companies absolutely insist on it.
I have installed many electrical services and always grounded the neutral conductor to the utility watermain or well casing,
It is part of a well grounded system.

They sell long 6 foot copper grounding rods for a reason. One should never have neutral or ground on the water supply. I for one would never have that done if I had a house built. It be a 6 foot copper grounding rod. Thankfully, the place I live in now has a dedicated grounding rod.

 

[urvile]

Are australians known to be good engineers?

Nah. It's due to the fact that australians are always drunk. We have to import the big engineering brains from overseas. Just make sure you have a degree the government* recognises or you will have problems getting a job. Unless you want to be a taxi driver. Then ahoy mateys!

*and/or the professional engineering association (or whatever the fuck they are called(I am drunk right now)).

 

[Red Squirrel]

Grounding the water line is a safety thing. The copper goes like 10 feet under ground so it is grounded by default and makes a good bonding point. Idealy you want more than one bonding point so you have ground rods too, and at your panel the ground and neutral are connected together. The neutral is also bonded to ground at the pole, there is a ground wire that comes down to a ground rod at the foot of the pole. In my house the gas line is grounded too, though I'm not sure if that is actually suppose to be. Either way that also goes very deep so it will be a ground anyway, may as well make sure it's at same potential as everything else.

In this instance, what probably happened is somehow, the hose tap went live, there is probably pex between the tap and the main supply, so the fault did not short to ground. If this was a full copper system whatever caused live voltage to go on the pipe would have shorted out to ground and tripped the breaker.

I do wonder if at one point we will see new electrical codes as more and more houses use plastic pipes now. Pex etc. Those are good products from a plumbing perspective and there is nothing wrong with them, but it just so happens that traditionally the plumbing system is also used for electrical grounding. Perhaps some codes at some point will require to run a ground line between different sections of metal pipe to make sure they are all at ground potential.

 

[Humpy]

250.4(A)Grounded Systems. (1) Electrical System Grounding.Electrical systems that are grounded shall be connected to earth in a manner that will limit the voltage imposed by lightning, line surges, or unintentional contact with higher-voltage lines and that will stabilize the voltage to earth during normal operation.

250.4(A)(3) Bonding of Electrical Equipment. Normally non–current-carrying conductive materials enclosing electrical conductors or equipment, or forming part of such equipment, shall be connected together and to the electrical supply source in a manner that establishes an effective ground fault current path.

 

[PowerEngineer]

There really isn't enough information in the article to know exactly what happened. My best guess is that the power "went out" due to a short circuit somewhere in the house wiring, and that reclosing the breaker applied the 240 volts (standard voltage in Australia) to the neutral. Perhaps the breaker failed to trip again, or perhaps the girl's jolt happened in the instant that the breaker was closed (although that seems unlikely). The idea of using water piping as a ground presumes that you are tying into an extensive network of underground metal pipes. In most newer construction (i.e. last 40 years) that I am familiar with, most underground water/sewer piping is plastic. You are therefore not really grounding the neutral by connecting it to just the piping inside a house - even if that piping is metal. You need the grounding rods. If grounding rods weren't used, then I can see how something like this could happen.