Bright Spark
Just remembered a "gud 'un" as they say in the Midlands.
Now my old man used to work as a welder in the days of yore, welding huge boiler tanks.
Now for those who dont know MMA welders work by passing electrical current into steel to melt (weld) it together. There are two main parts, the bit that holds the rod and a clip (kinda like a big crocodile clip). Electricity being as it is and always taking the shortest route, it is completely safe to touch the steel that your welding so long as the clip is closer to the rod than you are.
Right welding lesson over!
One of the lads, Steve we shall call him was sitting astride ("a la cowboy") a large tanker and running a seam of weld along the tank.
His friends (well ex friends now) thought it would be hilarious to distract his attention and while his attention was drawn remove said clip and place it onto the boiler tank !behind! his jeans clad ass.
Distraction over, the fastidious Steve returns to the task in hand and puts rod to steel right where he left off. Woops
He sent a lightning bolt straight through his tackle, he went a very funny shade of white and slowly (almost slo-mo) and silently slid from the side of the tank into a crumped heap on the floor. Feinted for a minute too.
After making sure he was conscious etc. We pick the poor lad from the ground and manage to convince him to inspect the damage,
His left nut is now the size of a small grapefruit and completely eclipsing the rest of his tackle as the rest had decided to go the opposite way.

Needless to say the 3 lads who moved the clip never owned up to doing it!

Steve has made a full recovery!

Apologies for length, but its a lot bigger than Steves!!!!!!!!!
(morrigan456 made sex wee on, Wed 19 Dec 2007, 13:40, 4 replies)

I don't know whether it's just me...
But I thought there was a difference between evil and dangerous? Maybe I was wrong.
(Belgaer is, Wed 19 Dec 2007, 14:03, closed)

Eh?
At the beginning of the story it was your dad, but by the end it was you...
(clumsyeloquence is a girl, Wed 19 Dec 2007, 14:11, closed)

really?
It doesnt matter where the electrode and earth clamp are in relation to each other and anything else, it is always safe to touch the metal while welding. The juice always takes the pass of least resistance to ground - its a hell of a lot less resistance through however many feet of steel to the earth clamp than through clothing, a person then arcing to ground.

Its possible to get a decent tingle if you are welding on wet ground outside if you touch the electrode/steel and the earth at the same time however, but its no worse than an electric sheep fence type of jolt.
(dave likes cheese, Wed 19 Dec 2007, 19:59, closed)

I'm glad that
I didn't have to be the engineering pedant to deflate this story. I thought about it, mind you, but didn't really want to be the one to call bullshit as I do that enough as it is...

The closest I've encountered to something like this was in high school when a guy thought it would be funny to ground out the arc welder through the back of another guy's neck. I'm told he flew 20 feet and had massive burns from it, but survived with no serious injuries. Needless to say, the prankster got expelled instantly.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 19 Dec 2007, 20:26, closed)