disc2slick
Active Member
In my HS (where most of my experience has taken place) we occasionally had reason to crawl up into the ceiling above our auditorium to focus lights, change house lights bulbs, run wires etc. The ceiling was not really constructed to be crawled in, thus most of it was just the plaster that amde the ceiling itself, and a narrow metal grid which held it together, so if you stuck to the metal you were fine, if you didn't, you were falling 40 feet into the seats of the house. Naturally there were no lights.
Anyway, the day in question, I had been crawling around the in the ceiling for 3 hours (with a broken xlr wrapped around my waist as belt, but thats beside the point) using a make shift flashlight, meaning a light bulb in a socket on an extension cord that would shock me at times. So, I was as far from the safe zone as possible, running cables when my light goes out. I could kind of see still so I finished. well I almost finish, i ran out of cable, while i was trying to feed it down the conduit that contained all of the power lines to the rest of the school (not the best idea, but in a pinch what else could I do?). so, thwarted, I returned to the booth covered in grim and ceiling dust.
Almost a year later, after I have graduated a I came back to pay a visit to my vice principal, pal of mine and a friend to our tech crew. he mentioned to me in passing (unaware of my wire running experience in the void, as the ceiling was called), that over the summer they had brought in electricians to just do an overhaul of the electircal ssytem, and had found an EXPOSED power cable carrying 200v (he said 200v, he may have been mistaken on that account), right where I had been. I very easily could have placed my hand foot or any part of my body on and basicallky been done for. I would most likely either have freaked out and fallen through the ceiling to the seats or served a conductor to electrify the entire grid holding up the ceiling, and thus anyone wh came to help me.
life is delicate when you are a techie...
Anyway, the day in question, I had been crawling around the in the ceiling for 3 hours (with a broken xlr wrapped around my waist as belt, but thats beside the point) using a make shift flashlight, meaning a light bulb in a socket on an extension cord that would shock me at times. So, I was as far from the safe zone as possible, running cables when my light goes out. I could kind of see still so I finished. well I almost finish, i ran out of cable, while i was trying to feed it down the conduit that contained all of the power lines to the rest of the school (not the best idea, but in a pinch what else could I do?). so, thwarted, I returned to the booth covered in grim and ceiling dust.
Almost a year later, after I have graduated a I came back to pay a visit to my vice principal, pal of mine and a friend to our tech crew. he mentioned to me in passing (unaware of my wire running experience in the void, as the ceiling was called), that over the summer they had brought in electricians to just do an overhaul of the electircal ssytem, and had found an EXPOSED power cable carrying 200v (he said 200v, he may have been mistaken on that account), right where I had been. I very easily could have placed my hand foot or any part of my body on and basicallky been done for. I would most likely either have freaked out and fallen through the ceiling to the seats or served a conductor to electrify the entire grid holding up the ceiling, and thus anyone wh came to help me.
life is delicate when you are a techie...