
Bluffboy says: My mate cheated death and burned his eyebrows off looking down the barrel of a potato gun. Tell us about your brushes with the Grim Reaper through stupidity.
( , Thu 12 Feb 2009, 20:01)
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One summer aged about 11 I made this fabulous longbow with a range of around 200 feet. A group of us tried all sorts of ways to use the range to either annoy people or attack things. After hitting cows from a wood we noticed lovely pylons and cables going across a field. Using a ball of unwound string tied to the arrow we found we could get a massive blue spark from the cables to the ground by firing the arrow over the cable and running. It was all well until the one day in the autumn when the ground was damp. We ran about 30 feet from the end of the string by the time the arrow struck its mark, but the power came down and raced across the ground leaving 4 of us with paralysed legs for about an hour. Didn’t do that again, but went on to pipe bombs, another tale.
( , Fri 13 Feb 2009, 0:18, 1 reply)

Professional curiosity: Were these the big metal pylons or 'just' wooden poles? Just wondering what sort of electric-death you dodged. This could prove a useful anecdote/example for teaching first aid.
( , Fri 13 Feb 2009, 0:27, closed)
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