3 year old electrocuted stepping out of an RV

[porthole]

July 02, 2014 10:10 am • The Associated Press
(0) Comments

AMBOY, Ill. — The Lee County Sheriff says a 3-year-old boy was accidentally electrocuted in the small town of Amboy.
Lee County Sheriff John Varga says Landyn Gerald Keener was pronounced dead Monday morning. The sheriff says the boy was leaving a trailer on his parents' property when the accident happened.
Varga tells The Telegraph in Dixon that it appears the outside of the trailer became electrified because of faulty wiring.



Amboy is about 50 miles southwest of Rockford.

http://qctimes.com/news/local/year-old-amboy-boy-electrocuted/article_09443cb6-01fb-11e4-b83d-001a4bcf887a.html

[video=youtube;opuult8jMOo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=opuult8jMOo&app=desktop[/video]

 

[JohnDar]

Sad to think that this could have been avoided with a $30 tester and 5 minutes (or less) of checking.

 

[wdk450]

if the rig was on his parents' property, there is a good chance it was plugged in a while back and remained plugged in. I found a 30 amp GFI made by Woodhead, and have made an adapter cord with this in line. I think a very big risk in the RV/trailer electrocutions is the electric water heater element, slowly corroding away over time, and creating an electrical leak to ground that only needs a poor ground connection to make a fatal accident. I wonder if turning off the electric water heater breaker as much as possible might reduce these accidents. Actually, it would be a good idea to have a tester box that would open the grounding so that worst case RV leakage could be measured, and corrective action taken if it is too high. we did this test on all electrical devices used in the hospital.

 

[Jim.Allison]

No bonded neutrals in RV's or trailer houses. Its hard for people to understand that RV's and trailer houses are wired like an appliance, (hair dryer, drill motor, or washing machine and dryer) there is only one bonded neutral allowed and that is at the source of the power. In the case of an RV park, the source is the pedestal. If you made a pedestal at your house for your rig the neutral would be bonded at the source which would be the service or outside breaker box. No-where on your rig should the ground and neutral be in the same field (bonded.)

It is an easy thing to check, unplug your trailer and check continuity between the ground and neutral wires. If there is continuity then you need to find out why. Another way is to put one foot on wet grass and the other foot on the steps.