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Wednesday, October 08, 2008

High Voltage

Often when something happens in my life that I don't enjoy, I tend to make an amusing post about it. It's my way of making lemonade out of lemons. Sometimes however, you just get lemons.

I was listening to my headphones in front of the computer. The song had ended so I took the earphones off to put them away. Without looking I reached into the wires of an air purifier with my hand still holding the earphones. My middle finger was the entry point and the charge went right through my body and down to my toes. If I had to describe it I would call it "being bitten by an electric eel underwater".

For hours afterwards I was unable to speak faster than 30 bpm and tingles and pains surged randomly through different parts of my body. The next day I was still speaking slowly and had pains in different regions of my head.

The most frightening moment was when I tried to use a computer and spent around a whole minute trying to figure out where the "copy" button is in Ctrl + copy. I felt like a complete dork when I realised it was just the "c" button. Considering I have been using computers since I was a kid, this was cause for concern.

The doctor did a multitude of tests of my reflexes and coordination. He wasn't entirely convinced I was ok, but he didn't want to alarm me either. Little did he know that underneath my vague and slow exterior was already a lot of panic and alarm. He ordered me to rest for a few days and get an Ambulance subscription. That didn't really fill me with optimism.

The next few nights were frightening as my heart was beating quickly and tingles and pains kept their random patterns going well into the small hours of the morning.

After I regained my energy after a couple of days, I tried yoga to get my circulation moving and exercise my muscles. Amazingly it worked so well that by the next day I was feeling like a new person.

I am pleased to say I am feeling back to normal apart from the occasional pain manifesting throughout various areas of my head. This is the first day I have blogged since the incident and I am happy to say I know how to use Ctrl + C again.




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6 comments:

  1. Ouch!

    I was in the car, my wife was driving and our daughter was in the back seat watching a video. She was fiddling with the portable DVD player and it locked up. I turned around in the seat and reached over to grab the player.

    Apparently the power cord had become disconnected and it was touching the DVD player case. I was wedged in the seatbelt with my beltclip cellphone touching the seat belt buckle. When I touched the DVD player it completed a circuit. My eyes went wide, all we could hear was a staccato buzzing coming from the cell phone as it bounced off the seatbelt buckle. There was also a pen in my shirt pocket and it too was bouncing.

    After about 3 seconds, which seemed like 5 minutes, I dropped the DVD player and slumped over the back of the seat. My wife pulled the car over to the side of the road as I came to.

    Fortunately I was OK. My fingers were numb for about an hour; the cell phone was toast, and I had a nasty burn on my chest where the pen tip apparently attracted the electricity.

    So yeah, I sympathize with what you went through. It's no fun.

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  2. I've had electric shocks before but nothing like what you went thru. Ouch!

    Hope u're feeling normal soon :D

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  3. you must have felt really down that few days.Glad you are ok now~

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  4. Good Lord, what an experience. I hope you recover fully

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  5. chris, perky, themusicbox, "cents"able momma & broadway matron

    - Thanks so much for your kind words. (fingers crossed!!) I believe I have made a full recovery now.

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