Dr. Death

Last week a researcher was running some tests with our equipment, and he had a machine he needed to hook up to it. All was well and good, until I saw that he had all of the power cables taped together with electrical tape. And the tape kept coming loose.

Things got worse when he plugged it in and hit the power button. He let out a squeak and jumped about six inches in the air, as it gave him a good jolt. Needless to say, I stayed away from Dr. Death's end of the apparatus. When he turned it off again, he let out another squeak and once again jumped a good six inches in the air. The rest of the day was punctuated with a series of these squeaks and jumps, visible and audible bookends to his experiments.

Let me break in right now and say that what I have heard is true: A common person, when shocked by electrical equipment, will never touch it again. A scientist when shocked by electrical equipment will touch it again within a few seconds to see if he/she is dealing with a persistent phenomenon.

The next day, Dr. Death had plugged in the offending piece of hardware and was was troubleshooting the problem. When he turned on the equipment, the breaker tripped and the coke machine and everything else along the wall turned off. For an hour, out of the corner of my eye, as I was working, I could see the coke machine turning on and off as Dr. Death troubleshot his equipment. All the while, I kept a wooden broom handle handy in case I had to pry him, smoking, from the object of his fascination.

I walked over to observe his work, he had the cover off of the device and was probing around with an unshielded screwdriver. There were black arc burns on the back panel, on the power switch, on some interior parts, and on the bottom of the case. He had shortcut several of the circuits, and many of the wires were wrapped in electrical tape, much like his power cords from yesterday.

"I found the problem". Said Dr. Death.

"What is it"? I asked.

"I melted the ground wire, and the hot, and now the case goes hot every time I plug it in".

I gave him the "well...duh" look.

"This situation is very dangerous, I am lucky that I did not get killed". He said, then laughed a good belly laugh.

Later that day I had to go ask Dr. Death a question, he was in his office.

"Take the broom handle with you". Said my coworker. "You might have to pry him off of something when you get there".