A little while ago, I noticed one of the light switches (one of the turny ones) inside my (audio) booth (for conducting hearing tests) was loose. I'd turn it to switch on the light and then I'd have to jiggle it a little for the light to actually come on. Now, based on my experience living in older houses when something like that happens, there's usually a short of some sort. So I called hospital maintenance.
Last Monday was calibration day for all my equipment and the electrician shows up then. Between myself and the calibration guy we were able to explain how the whole thing was set up and he, the electrician, decided since it would take longer to get a new light fixture than light switch, he'd be back later in the week with the replacement switch and start there.
Thursday over lunch he knocks on my door and comes in to change the part out. He disconnects power and and goes to work as I'm eating lunch and doing chart notes. Than I hear, "Oh dear" coming from him and stop. It's rare that something good comes from the phrase "oh dear". He asks me to come in and then I get the bottom line...
... The wiring from the outside of the booth's electric to the light fixture has dried out, become brittle and started cracking leaving exposed live wires. And my booth, BTW, is about a 10'x10' metal booth with 4" of soundproofing material before there's another layer of metal. It's a 6 sided, double-walled metal box and I had exposed live wires. For those who don't know/remember much about electrics, here's the next part of the conversation. ... "If these wires had been touching the booth and then someone had been standing inside and touched the wall, they would have fried." "hmm, you mean something like this (and then I proceeded to lean against the wall with my back in a modified wall-sit like I tend to do with most of my patients when I'm explaining results or testing procedures." "yeah, you woulda been killed."
Did you catch that everybody, not just zapped but killed. The thing is, the booth is a constant stream of power, but due to the amount of equipment and the age of the electrics, the chances of there being auto shut-off for surges, are slim, but even if there were, I'd still be in a metal box and have completed the ground, it wouldn't have shut off before it killed me (more than likely). How's that for an "Oh $hit" moment.
The electrician shut down my booth for the rest of the afternoon to re-wire something (they'd also been using much smaller gauge wiring than recommended for the current being used. The electrician kept apologizing but I assured him I'd rather have to reschedule some patients than be in a pine box.
After a bit of wide eyes and some screeching, the consensus has been, "Wow, I'm glad you're not dead"
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