I was reminded of this by the power saw thread.
In Feb 2011, two horses were killed at Newbury racecourse by part of the paddock becoming live after heavy rain.
I wondered what the outcome of the (electrical) investigation was but can not find anything online. Reports ore conflicting - some say it was an old 240V cable directly buried for a long time which had deteriorated, others say it was an 11kV cable.
Anyone know?
Long while ago, but I thought they said it was a cable to an outside light or floodlight which had failed. I'm a bit dubious as one might have expected the main fuse or cb to trip when water got in. If it was conductive enough to kill horses, it should have been conductive enough to trip something, that is the point of having breakers!
Brian
The released a preliminary report 17th Feb last year, but I can't find anything since
Depends on the conductivity of the ground, as was mentioned at the time quadrupeds are more susceptible than bipeds because they're longer, so a smaller volts/metre gradient exposes them to a higher voltage between their legs ...
I think it was a cable that had been forgotten about and which was still live. The reason that it affected Dobbin and not a human is that Dobbin has four legs all of which make nice contact with the earth, and over a larger area. So if there was a potential difference across the ground, current can flow up Dobbin's front leg, through his heart, and down a back leg. In the case of the human, if his boots conduct at all, it's up one leg and down the other, so not via the heart. Just don't fall over, that all.
Hmm, well, seems odd to me. Brian
Hmm, well, I thought that the bit the shoe fits on is basically like a toe nail, after all if it was living flesh they could not nail shoes into it could they?
Brian
Horses feet still have a fleshy pad (called the "frog") behind the nail of the hoof, just like your fingertips.
Tim
Alas not always. Unless there was a RCD present (which will detect and trip on a very small leakage to earth), a conventional fuse or MCB relies on many amps of fault current to trip. When your earth leakage is into a nicely earthed metal enclosure belonging to a bit of equipment - as might be the case in your home, that's easy to achieve. When its a conduction path via water ingress in a bit of failed insulation on a buried cable, that is very much harder to achieve.
Couple that to the increased sensitivity to shock that befalls quadrupeds, and a bad situation gets worse rapidly.
Two legs good (and insulating soles) four legs bad. You sometimes get cows blatted by lightning close to a strike if the potential difference between front and hind quarters is sufficient to stop their heart.
I expect horses fail in roughly the same way - so do people if they are unlucky enough to get hit by lightning or touch mains voltage cables.
Regards, Martin Brown
A horse or cow doesn't have the option to "let go" of the live ground (even supposing they understood what was happening). You could always stand on one leg.
There's another factor too - most animals are electrocuted by much lower currents than humans can handle. I've never seen any reason for this given, although it is known by those who have to design safe environments for livestock, etc (and it's not because of feet being further apart on the ground, although that makes it even worse).
From the story I read - Suppliers cable, or a sub main, had been damaged a few weeks previously by a digger. The current passed was not noticed by humans as we dont have wide legs, so the ground immediately around the damage was at the same potential, the ground 6 foot away was at a much higher potential. Uninsulated horse with an 8 foot tread had a foot in each zone, and passed the current between the areas via its body, and was killed.
4 legged creatures, especially large ones, are far more susceptible to shocks from the ground than humans.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.