A man was electrocuted on Friday evening on Orionstraat in Rotterdam-Hillegersberg after fiddling with a live power cable sticking out of the ground on the street, right next to the construction site of a new apartment complex.
Neighbours saw the lights in their homes flicker around that time and...
The neighbours saw the flash of flame, which fits perfectly. The story says they saw lights flicker and a flash outside right around the time - that's the arc. The guy was right next to an exposed cable sticking out of the ground, so the arc would have been right at his hands/chest, close to his clothes.
There's also a second heat source: the current itself. The body resists electricity, and that resistance converts current into heat (Joule heating - IΒ²R). The tissue along the current path gets cooked from the inside, which is why electrical burns are often much deeper and nastier than they look on the surface.
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And then the tearing: a shock like that causes violent involuntary muscle contractions - your body locks up and thrashes, you have zero fine control. Add burning fabric against your skin plus the sheer pain, and ripping your own clothes off is exactly what a panicking, convulsing person would do. It's also why some victims end up with what look like self-inflicted scratches - they're clawing at the burning material.
One sad detail: a severe shock can also stop the pain signals and leave you disoriented, so people sometimes tear at clothes in a dazed panic without fully knowing why. Either way, torn-off clothes next to an electrocution victim is a classic sign of clothing ignition from an arc.
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The important part for anyone reading: if someone is still in contact with a live cable, don't grab them - you'll become the new path to ground and get shocked too. Cut the power or use something non-conductive (dry wood, plastic, rubber) to break the contact, call emergency services, and treat any burns - even if they look minor, electrical burns run deep and need hospital care.
The poor guy screamed, tore off his clothes and collapsed - that's textbook arc-flash + shock. Hope he makes it.
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