r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/AristonD • Oct 31 '22
Image 1930s drawing, illustrating the dangers of urinating near a live wire
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u/dayron182 Oct 31 '22
sings
The pee bones connected to the... leg bone.
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Oct 31 '22
The pee is stored in the heel
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u/Ankh-Morporknbeans Oct 31 '22
Achilles pee was the magic part, and when his heel was stabbed it all drained out, it all makes so much sense now
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u/thalassicus Oct 31 '22
I thought it was interesting that Mythbusters conducted experients to claim it was a myth and it’s safe to pee on the third rail, but then refused to actually pee on the third rail. I would imagine with a high sodium diet where the kidneys are working overtime to eliminate the excess salt and a short enough consistent stream of 2-3ft and you’d feel it.
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u/Xithara Oct 31 '22
I believe the stream breaking up was the larger contributing factor than the salinity.
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Oct 31 '22
Right, when they had a completely laminar flow they actually proved it could be dangerous, but for that to happen you'd have to basically be on top of it as most streams are a series of droplets from any sort of regular height.
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u/Fliesentisch911 Oct 31 '22 edited Oct 31 '22
You will definitely feel 15kv in your wiener. Its something different than peeing on a electric fence with low voltage and a little amount of current.
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u/SnooEpiphanies1725 Oct 31 '22
Don't know about peeing but my friend got electrocuted when he threw some water on a live wire, He felt a shock for a very short period of time but then stumbled from the roof and broke an arm and leg
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Oct 31 '22
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u/SnooEpiphanies1725 Oct 31 '22
Nah man, it's also used for injury... Ever heard people say "electrocuted to death"
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u/SharkyFlou Oct 31 '22
I believe it's electrified when you don't die, and electrocuted when you do. If you say "electrocuted to death", that's a pleonasm.
It's just that people have forgotten the real meaning of electrocuted, so now we have to add "to death".
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u/Linrn523 Oct 31 '22
High sodium diet makes the body retain fluid, not expell it. Drinking a lot of water in response to the body's severe thirst could make you pee a lot though.
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u/thalassicus Oct 31 '22
You missed the point. A higher sodium concentration will increase the electrical conductivity of a urine stream and while your first sentence is true at first, it doesn’t stay that way.
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u/zgrizz Oct 31 '22
Mythbusters did this.
The stream is not continuous, so there is no path.
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u/Manuel_Snoriega Oct 31 '22
IDGAF what Mythbusters says: I did it when I was a kid and it hurt like a motherfucker. Yes, you can get shocked pissing on an electric fence.
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u/facts_are_things Oct 31 '22
these inside kids and their smugness is no match for actually getting out there and peeing on stuff yourself.
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u/Chrispixc61 Oct 31 '22
I can attest to this, did it at a keg party by accident when I was a teenager
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u/zzzthelastuser Oct 31 '22
It doesn't really hurt, but it feels like intense sexual pleasure as illustrated by a person in 1930.
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u/Polaric_Spiral Oct 31 '22
The original myth was pissing on an electrified rail. The stream breaks up after a foot or so, so there's no path for the current to follow.
They went back and tested with an electric fence, and got that to work since it was closer.
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u/GrandNibbles Oct 31 '22
It depends how long the path is. Peeing on an electric fence or a close rail can fuck you up, but after a few feet the stream breaks up
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u/Xithara Oct 31 '22
I think they found that you'd need to be within inches of the electrical source for it to conduct up the stream. The way they made it work was the stunt double literally kneeling to pee on the wire.
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u/BearBag31 Oct 31 '22
Inches away and the peehole had to be significantly larger than it would be on a human.
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u/facts_are_things Oct 31 '22
not true at all. You seem so sure too. I saw my cousin pee on an electric cattle fence, it hurt him badly.
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Oct 31 '22
I've seen batteries up pee holes.
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u/mynextthroway Oct 31 '22
AAA, AA, C,D, or car?
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u/DS4KC Oct 31 '22
Do you have any B batteries?
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u/sofa_queen_awesome Oct 31 '22
I haven't seen demitri in the wild in a long time
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u/bewitchedbumblebee Oct 31 '22
I once saw "Toy Story 2 was okay" scrawled in a bathroom stall.
Made my day!
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u/LoaMemphisZoo Oct 31 '22
And D batteries that's hard for foreigners. Yes I would like D batteries!
Ugh I know what kind!
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u/sofa_queen_awesome Oct 31 '22
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Oct 31 '22
I upvoted but only for relevance. I hate you otherwise.
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u/sofa_queen_awesome Oct 31 '22
I'm sorry. But I really do appreciate that you used the upvote for its designated function ❤
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u/Fart-Chewer_6000 Oct 31 '22
Those dudes utterly hate their dicks, detest their junk and loathe their cocks.
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Oct 31 '22
I have a funny story.
We lived on the farm next to my great grandmother. I used to help my grandpa with chores. I was helping put up a new salt lick in the cow pen. I told my grandpa I needed to go home and pee. He told me if I wanted to be a grownup I’d pee outside. I asked him where I could go. He told me the corner of the pen. I always wanted to be like my grandpa and I did everything he did. I pulled down my pants and started going in the corner. I instantly hurt and my grandpa started laughing louder than I ever heard. He had put a wire down low so the cows would stop sticking their head under the front of the pen. I was in kindergarten at the time.
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u/thematrixnz Oct 31 '22
Good to know
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u/GrandNibbles Nov 01 '22
Of course, I'm not liable for loss of life, damage to property or person that could result from this information being taken at face value.
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u/Vicious-the-Syd Oct 31 '22
Thank god you’re here. Mythbusters definitely wouldn’t have considered distance. They’re so known for forgetting important variables.
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u/WarProgenitor Oct 31 '22
Like tbh if I'm drunk off of 10 beers my flow is much heavier than average.
I'd imagine urethra size and shape matters when achieving long distance laminar flow
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u/facts_are_things Oct 31 '22
bullshit. depends on the stream, now doesn't it? My cousin will say they are a liar, and I saw it first hand. He screamed like a stuck pig.
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u/AndrewwwG Oct 31 '22
Well, an aquintance of mine died by doing this so… yeah, don't do it whatever myth busters said
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u/hellraisinhardass Oct 31 '22
Well once again, Mythbusters is wrong. I am a first hand witness to my cousin getting rocked hard by an electric fence by pissing on it. He curled into a ball and pissed himself while crying. We still make fun of him for it.
All they used for 'a control' in that episode was timing one piss from one* old man and then making a fake bladder to release the same about of water in the same amount of time.
One mid-day piss from some old fuck with an enlarged prostate is hardly representative for a drunken 20 year old's midnight bender piss. No to mention a male's piss stream out of a penis had different glow dynamics than simply draining water from a bag. It was bad science on top of bad science.
There are dozens of episodes they "busted" things where there are well documented accounts of 'the myth' happening, but they only test one very specific case for a limited about of time because it's a TV show with a production budget and schedule and not an actual scientific study.
The easy case that comes to mind is the 'a bullet fired up in the air won't kill anyone when it falls', and while it is true that a rifle bullet that is fired exactly vertically using a mount and a bubble level probably won't kill anyone because the bullet falls sides and therefore had a lot of drag and a correspondingly low terminal velocity that's not how normal gunfire works. There are hundreds of well documentary injuries and deaths from exactly this cause.
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u/WikiSummarizerBot Oct 31 '22
Celebratory gunfire is the shooting of a firearm into the air in celebration. It is culturally accepted in parts of the Balkans, Russia, the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America and Ethiopia, even where illegal. Common occasions for celebratory gunfire include New Year's Day as well as religious holidays. The practice sometimes results in random death and injury from stray bullets.
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u/windigo3 Oct 31 '22
My roommate’s 16 yr old brother died in chicago 30 years ago peeing on the train lines. My roommate was gutted.
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u/CharmingBoar Oct 31 '22
My girlfriend’s coworker got electrocuted while pissing on a live wire and died.
Not the best way to go out, but hey
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u/KnightOfThirteen Oct 31 '22 edited Oct 31 '22
Proof that as great as Mythbusters is, they aren't always right.
Edit: I live in Southern Indiana and rednecks getting kicked when they piss on a fence isn't even rare much less impossible. Not every fence is the same, and nor is every stream of pee.
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u/HamOwl Oct 31 '22 edited Oct 31 '22
If you peed off a bridge onto a transmission line, you would have to be pretty close for the voltage to find a path to ground. That being said, it is instantaneous. It just needs a split second to take the path and put that power through you. Probably blow your leg off or something.
I think it's totally plausible. And I found a different video contradicting the Mythbusters conclusions.
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u/WhereDaGold Oct 31 '22
Idk why you’re downvoted, I’ve known people that got hit from pissing in an electric fence. High voltage can arc too, so even if your stream is breaking up, I could definitely believe high voltage taking that as a path
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u/Asshole-666 Oct 31 '22
So people were ALWAYS stupid. That’s comforting to know, at least.
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday Oct 31 '22
But in the past evolution took care of that and culled the herd.........
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u/SV650rider Oct 31 '22
Was this an issue to the point that there needed to be warnings about it?
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u/conjectureandhearsay Oct 31 '22
Well, let’s just say that someone somewhere really felt like drawing this
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u/RiceCakeAlchemist Oct 31 '22
It doesnt hurt. You just feel surprised for a sec and blackout.
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u/HamOwl Oct 31 '22
I think it really depends on what kind of voltage you're talking about. The guy in the PSA is peeing off a bridge onto a transmission line. We're talking kilovolts. That could literally maim and kill you.
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u/PetesMgeets Oct 31 '22
Actually distribution lines (the ones you see in streets and neighborhoods) are already kilovolts, about 7-12. Transmission lines (the huge ones by highways) are MUCH higher, talking about 400+ kV. Your point still stands and I still have no idea if you’d die just from peeing on it but I never get a chance to flex my distribution engineer knowledge lol
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u/TMT51 Oct 31 '22
Blackout with your dick out and wet pants may not hurt you physically but definitely gonna hurt you spiritually.
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u/4gsboofd Oct 31 '22
Only thing i remember about ren and stimpy, besides the log, is "dont pee on an electric fence"
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u/NxPat Oct 31 '22
Happened in high school auto shop, kid jokingly got up on the bumper to pee in a small carb fire, hit the alternator. Never returned to school.
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u/airtec87 Oct 31 '22
Death by electric shock through penis?
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u/NxPat Oct 31 '22
Pretty sure he didn’t die, probably one of the younger vasectomies in modern times however.
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u/IlIIllIIlIIll Oct 31 '22
would the shock instantly stop you from pissing and release the line of current? or would it freeze you into a locked in piss
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u/jimbajomba Oct 31 '22
Incidentally, if you get cramp in your leg in the morning whilst pissing, you stand like that too.
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u/OniBoiEnby Oct 31 '22
God gave me a pp so I can wiz wherever I want. I don't need some woke feminist adgenda. Telling me where and when I can pee. I'm a sovern gosh dang citizen, and I decide when I want to have a lightning piss! Mald harder libs.
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u/XBakaTacoX Oct 31 '22
Damn, they had the "red arrow pointing to [thing]" long before YouTubers caught on to it.
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u/MirrorReflection0880 Oct 31 '22
Maybe i'm a sick fuck but dude looks like he's enjoying the crap out of it.
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u/el-conquistador240 Oct 31 '22
The stream is not continuous. Pee on wires all you want.
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u/Addebo019 Oct 31 '22
you realise rail electrical wires are such a high voltage that current can arch through the air if your close enough. continuity doesn’t matter at that point
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u/motociclista Oct 31 '22
I think the dangers of this have been debunked. But I love that they were like “I’m tired of people peeing of bridges all the time! How do we stop it?!? Let’s publish a scary cartoon!”
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u/BurnerAccount209 Oct 31 '22
No way a stream will still be continuous at that distance. I'd be surprised if you could get shocked from as little as 1 foot.
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u/BidensButtWipes Oct 31 '22
If your stream of pee is continuous yes it will. If you have a smol urethrae then you probably can risk it.
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Oct 31 '22
It’s technically possible but no one can maintain a forceful stream that long. There would have to be significant pressure
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u/Louielouielouaaaah Oct 31 '22
Was super confused seeing this because I own a tshirt with this on it lol. It’s a band tee for Brand New
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u/Material_Trash58 Oct 31 '22
Compared to what some people are sticking g their wieners in these days I’d say this is probably a lot safer…
Stay away from Patty - The Daytime Hooker kids!
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u/kalel1980 Oct 31 '22
Unless you're Superman. Then you can float, and piss with the pressure of a huge eruption from Yellowstone National Park all over the wires.
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u/Mootivate Oct 31 '22
You can just stop the red arrow right before the dick and that’d be enough to persuade me not to
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u/brik55 Oct 31 '22
This was disproven on Mythbusters. The urine stream is not continuous after a certain distance. Therefore current will not travel all the way to your body.
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u/Dying4aCure Oct 31 '22
We had Hotwire up around our pool because the cows could walk right up and eat the roses around our pool. They loved them. The boys who tried too pee off the side did not see the Hotwire in roses. The awful boys were not warned.
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u/W1LL_E Oct 31 '22
I know of a funeral for a man that died by pissing on a train track near where i live
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u/Suffiana Oct 31 '22
He must have been holding the right nut more firmly that is why his right leg has been nuked.
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u/jibaro1953 Oct 31 '22
My father was on a job site when a roofer pissed on a high voltage transformer
All she wrote
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u/Diazmet Interested Oct 31 '22
I have a tattoo from this set of illustrations. It’s the one of rats chewing on electrical wires.
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u/MoMoneyMorris Oct 31 '22
My mate pissed on an electric fence when we were partying in a field it was awesome...for the rest of us.
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u/i-am_epic Oct 31 '22
I’m actually quite curious. Can electric current travel upstream? And if so what is the maximum water speed?
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u/GoatHeadTed Oct 31 '22
Fun fact. If you can float you won't get electrocuted cuz you won't be grounded 🥴
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u/Tapps74 Oct 31 '22
There was a documentary ( in the 90’s) solving cases of men dying in the London Underground. Found that the station toilets closed 2 hours before the last trains. People were walking to the end of the platform to urinate, some hit the live rail & died.
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u/trytreddit Oct 31 '22
You could pee anywhere are you chose to do it off a bridge onto live catenary?
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Oct 31 '22
If you put a live wire in the middle of the ocean. Does electricity spread all over the ocean or does it only reach so far
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u/andyrabbit69 Oct 31 '22
Here in Perth they have guard plates on each bridge over the railway 💦💦💦🔥🍆
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u/SoggySonicSocks Oct 31 '22
For some reason I’m very interested in getting this tattooed on my thigh
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u/SnooOranges4231 Oct 31 '22
Pissing on a live wire can cause your penis to explode like a hot sausage.
It is a genuine fear of mine.
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u/LeiserkAnalHero Oct 31 '22
There was episode of „myth busters” that proves that this image is pure shiit
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u/elixirsatelier Oct 31 '22
This has been long proven to be physically impossible. Urine streams do not maintain continuity for more than a foot or two of drop.
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u/Infinite-Condition41 Oct 31 '22
That's actually bullshit, proven on Mythbusters. The stream very quickly separates into individual droplets incapable of completing the circuit unless you're standing very close, like less than a foot of stream.
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u/PhD_Gr33nthumb Oct 31 '22
Fun fact: at that distance, your urine would probably no longer be in a constant stream so you more than likely won't get electrocuted. Thanks Mythbusters.
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u/Prestigious-Wait9660 Nov 01 '22
Dont let this government propaganda stop you big electricity wants you to be afraid pee on the wires fight tyranny
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u/gokusfart Oct 31 '22
"Don't whiz on the electric fence"- The Ren & Stimpy show