Wisconsin teen electrocuted while gathering earthworms

[undeterred]

CASSVILLE, Wis.— A 13-year-old has been accidentally electrocuted while trying to gather earthworms in his yard for a fishing trip with his father in the Village of Cassville in southwest Wisconsin.

The Grant County sheriff's office reports Evan J. Hauk was using a 110-volt electric prod to drive earthworms to the surface of his yard on Wednesday. He was barefoot when he got the lethal shock.

Grant County Sheriff Keith Govier says the boy's father called 911 about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. Emergency medical personnel responded and took Evan to Grant Regional Health Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Govier says using electricity to gather worms is a common technique in the area and he considers it safe -- when the equipment is in good working order and the operator follows instructions.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-wi-teenelectrocuted,0,1368465.story

I never heard of this technique. :shrug:

[sakabatou]

1. I feel sorry for the kid and the father

But, that's kind of a stupid thing to do: working with electricity with bare feet.

[Greybnk48]

2. My FIL used this type of prod back in the 70's.

It's supposed to be completely safe. How sad.

[Occulus]

3. apparently it's common

http://www.google.com/search?q=earthworms+%2Belectricity

[kestrel91316]

4. We always used to just grab a shovel and head out to a corner of the garden.

Nice mmoist, fertile soil is earthworm heaven. Please don't tell me this lazy person's way of getting them is the new rage?

If you can't bring yourself to dig up a few worms, you don't deserve to catch any fish IMHO.

[undeterred]

5. I remember the neighbor kids coming over when I was

planting bulbs and they would be grabbing up all the worms they could see in the soil. Even the little girl. They would take a couple cans, fill them up, and sell them to the fishermen down by the lake for a few bucks.

[Kaleva]

6. It's not safe and one must wear rubber boots and gloves when using such a technique.

The kid was barefoot and very likely standing on damp grass since it was in the morning. Most people will use a 6 volt battery or a 12 volt car battery. Since it was 110 volts used, my guess is the device was hooked up to house current and I also guess that the outlet used wasn't GFI protected.

[Dreamer Tatum]

7. Change the state to TX and this would be a comedy thread. nt

[RKP5637]

8. I used to do that years ago as a kid. Often I think back glad I'm still alive. All it takes is

a bit of carelessness.

[saras]

9. I've seen it done since the sixties, and had the sense it was already old.

Other posters have mentioned that they've never heard of it. If people have never heard of it, and are ignorant of it, some are going to make safe assumptions and some are going to make unsafe assumptions. This kid most likely had bad luck and had never learned about electricity flowing through the ground - it isn't at all obvious.

That said, using 120VAC is nearly the worst way to do it (using 240VAC, 440VAC, or downing power lines to do it is worse). A 12v car battery doesn't work as well, but works. An isolation transformer makes it hugely safer, but nearly no one has such a thing. An electric fence charger that runs off a battery works better than a plain battery. And you can make an equivalent with a car battery, an ignition coil, and a relay.

They are in all cases dangerous. While a car battery won't electrocute you, it will turn any metal smaller than a crowbar red-hot in seconds or explode if shorted. If higher-voltage electricity goes through your body, it will electrocute you. If you're wet, it's much worse.

If you understand what's going on, it is as safe as, say, using a table saw. You should know where the electricity is going (if you use line current, it goes from the hot electrode to the best available ground, which may NOT be your other electrode). If it goes under where you are standing, this is not good.

[Peter1x9]

10. My dad and I did this all the time before we would go fishing.

Basically, what this involves is sticking electric prods in the ground. The worms can't stand the electricity from the prods, so they actually climb right out of the ground. Once they climb out, it is simply a matter of picking them up. Digging was completely unnecessary. We wore our shoes and gloves when prodding for worms and never once had a problem (except for the occasional breaker needing to be reset). Earthworms are plentiful in California, so most years we never had to buy a single box of worms. They were so plentiful in our area (edge of the central valley close to the Suisun Bay) that we could get lots of worms from our front and back yards.

We also made a worm bin for red worms (they are much smaller than earthworms, but unfortunately earthworms won't survive in a box). Instead of going into the trash, our food waste went into the worm bin. We used the red worms to catch small baitfish (some type of suckerfish, I forget the exact name). We then used the baitfish to catch the larger striped bass in the Sacramento river (only the stripers big enough to legally keep could take the bait). Here's a link a box similar to what we used: http://www.watershedactivities.com/projects/winter/wormbin.html