Water and Electricity dont add up.

Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I have been able to swim longer than I’ve been able to walk. In terms of coordination, its one of the few sports that I can compete in as I have a terminal case of unco-ordination. I cant fall and hurt myself while I’m in a swimming pool.

So, as a swimmer, I’m well drilled on the dangers of electricity and water. I was told as a child that even if you have the slightest suspicions that the water is ‘live’ that I shouldn’t go anywhere near it. Not even to rescue somebody else - one body is better than two. Electricity is seriously lethal, especially when most large swimming pools run on three-phase BADASS electrical supplies. It’s also the reason why outdoor swimmers will evacuate the pool mid-lap when there’s even the merest glimpse of lightening.

Going to Uni and studying Electrical Engineering advanced my knowledge and first hand experience. My first hand got electrocuted while I was in my second week of Uni - simply because I was a stupid know-it-all and thought that 15V wouldn’t hurt at all. It didn’t bloody tickle, let me say that! The bodies reaction to electricity is something that’s immediate and beyond conscious control. Your muscles spasm, contract. In my case, it cased a painful zap in my fingers, a small electrical burn, and a strange metallic taste in my mouth thanks to the conductive elements neatly placed therein by my dentist. Needless to say, it was a learning experience and one I didn’t need to revise or repeat!

Brook Hanson’s Career in Turmoil.

Now, the latest news headlines are claiming that another swimmer, Brooke Hanson, was electrocuted while she was lounging in a spa while representing her sponsors, Endless Spa, at a trade show. In fact, she was ‘electrocuted’ as she got out of the pool, whereby she fainted and bumped her head and elbow.

Sounds nasty, and sounds like a serious case of shoddy workmanship.

To that, I say bullshit.

If it was the spa that electrocuted her, she would have been thrown across the trade-show floor the minute the first hair on her body touched the water. Most spa filters/heaters will run on 240V which will do more than give you a tingle in your tootsies. The reaction would have been dramatic and immediate.

The very fact that she lounged in the spa for an unmentioned length of time seems to suggest that it was something other than the electrical supply from the spa that caused Brooke to do her swan dive. The symptoms that the above article describe do not fit with electrocution. The fact that she’s getting pain in her arm may be somehow related to the fact that she knocked it when she fainted. The fact that she’s still bedridden may also point to something else.

Now, I’m not Dr House - I don’t have a medical degree. I’m not going to reveal the big mystery behind the whole affair. I honestly don’t have that biological and medical understanding to do that.

What I can do is theorise and guess.

What I think actually happened was that Ms Hanson was representing her sponsors well - lounging in the water, saying hello to all the folks and tradies, sipping a few chardys, and spending a good deal of time in the spa. If the spa was ‘live’ she wouldn’t have been able to tolerate even the smallest amount of time in the water.

The funny thing about spa’s are that they’re usually nice and warm. When your body gets warmer than 37degrees, your body will go into “cool down” mode - you’ll start to sweat and your skin will go nice and pink. While that’s fine for a nice hot shower, or a quick dip in the pool, prolonged overheating will lead to dehydration and heatstroke. You cant feel yourself sweating while you’re in a spa. Add champagne to the mix, a diuretic, and you’ve got a few good reasons why a perfectly healthy person will take a sudden nosedive into the floor.

Merch - Electrical Injury

I really dont know what caused Brooke to collapse. I really hope she is feeling better quickly, as she’s a great representative for Australia and swimmers in general. I just hope that she’s not trying to hide a personal mistake (dehydration) behind a media smoke screen.

But most of all, I wish the media circus would use some common sense and not drag Endless Spa’s through the mire - even the suspicion that their spas are faulty will damage their business. After all, Brooke has been sponsored by them for over three years - it’d be a terrible irony if she was partly to blame for them going out of business!