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Posted by Gerry Atrick on February 11, 2007, 12:01 am
On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 23:01:11 -0500, "RBM" <rbm2(remove
this)@optonline.net> wrote:
>I want to know if you had to give the horse mouth to mouth
Smart ass !!!!! :) :) :)
The horse got up on his own, about a minute after I cut the power. He
was pretty shook up though. Of course he was not the only one, this
is one of my favorite horses. By the way, i did not mention that the
cause of his almost electrocution was a defective tank heater.
Somehow it developed an internal short. That heater had a stiff
spring wire around the cord to prevent cord chewing. Those things do
prevent chewing, but they have a downfall, which I learned with this
incident.
I did not see the initial problem, but this is how I assume it
occurred. He probably went to get a drink and got a shock and fell.
(horses are on bare ground barefooted or with metal shoes, so they are
well grounded). When he fell, the cord with that metal spring around
it, was contacting him, in fact he was laying on it, when I found him
jerking around in shock, and ripped the cable out. It appears that
when he went down, his leg slipped behind that cord and that metal
coil around the cord continued to carry the electricity into his body.
What saved him was his kicking. He kept kicking that plastic water
trough. His water trough is about 70 feet from my house. He began
kicking the tank as he laid there and when I heard the loud banging, I
looked out the door and immediately knew what was happening. I went
out that door immediately, no coat, no shoes or anything. Talk about
running around in the snow wearing only socks and a t-shirt, when the
outdoor temp was about 10 deg. But that was a small price to pay to
save my best buddy. As soon as the power was cut I grabbed him, and
slapped him a few times. Then he got up. (talk about being releived).
I was back in the house calling the vet as soon as he was up. The vet
told me that if he was up and moving he should be fine, and he was.
This is one of the scariest things that I ever dealt with. The
following day I bought about 10 GFIs and was installing them all over
the farm. I hope that anyone with horses or other animals that reads
this will PLEASE install GFIs whereever you use a tank heater. Those
things are made to be safe, but nothing is failure proof.
By the way, I did contact the manufacturer afterwards. They said this
does not regularly happen but said anything can fail and they sent me
a new heater without charge, and paid for the shipping of that old one
so they could inspect it. I never heard the results, but I hope they
learned something to make future ones safer.
>You're best bet would be to replace the entire cord if possible, second to
>that you might be successful with heat shrink tubing, but it really has to
>be a good seal or the GFCI is just going to trip
>
Unfortunately those cords are embedded in the heaters. There are no
screws or anything thats removable. It appears they put the cord into
the wide end of the heater, slip a metal sleeve over the end and fill
it with some sort of epoxy. It's permanent !!!!
>
>
>> One of my stupid mules decided that the cord on his stock tank heater
>> was something to eat, and chewed the cord right off the thing. This
>> is one of those portable heaters that drop in the water and get
>> plugged in. Needless to say, I was extremely pissed to find my brand
>> new $70 120V heater with the cord chewed off, and I mean it was
>> literally chewed in half (all 3 of the wires - white-black-green).
>> Lucky for him, it was on a GFI. (I always use GFI's around livestock
>> after having a horse get electricuted once, but I saved his life).
>> That horse was down and was quivvering and I could see he was being
>> electricuted, so I got one of those adrenalin rushes and ripped the
>> cable right out of the building with my bare hands. He got up after a
>> minute and was ok. Ever since, there is a GFI on every outlet used
>> for animals.
>>
>> Here's the question. I cant just toss a new $70 heater. I'm not made
>> out of money. I want to splice the wires and will solder them and
>> tape them well. But I need a means to seal the entire connection to
>> insure that water dont get in there. He only left about 6 inches on
>> the heater, so my splice will be under the water. Therefore it MUST
>> be watertight. Does anyone know of a method to do this? The cord is
>> just one of those common rubbery black cords like on most power tools.
>>
>> Yeah, I know some people will highly advise to NOT do this and buy a
>> new heater, but like I said, I cant afford to keep buying these things
>> and this is not the first time this has happened. I have two more
>> chewed ones sitting in my garage, but those were old ones so I
>> replaced them with new ones. I should mention that if for some reason
>> my splice were to allow leakage, I ALWAYS plug them into a GFI so the
>> worst thing will be a tripped GFI.
>>
>> One idea I have is to put some hose over the cord before I make the
>> splice, then slide the hose over the completed splice and pump the
>> hose full of pure silicone caulk around the cord, which will extend
>> several inches on both sides of the splice.
>>
>> Anyone want to buy a stupid mule? :)
>> From now on I'll stick to horses..... They have more brains.....
>> (By the way, this same mule ate a 6X10 blue plastic tarp a few months
>> ago.... All that was left was about a 2X3 foot piece when I caught him
>> in the act.)
>>
>> Gerry
>
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