This is an interesting discussion in light of a tragedy yesterday in a
town near Salt Lake City. A 18 year guy moved away from home and was
moving into an apartment. He crawled behind his dryer to plug it in to
the 240 outlet.  He was electrocuted and his roommate found his body.
Upon inspection they found that the apartment owner had done his own
electrical work and accidentally reversed the wiring so that the dryer
ground was energized and he probably touched it and was in a tight area
between the dryer and the wall. This is a sad reality of what happens
when people without a clue attempt to do their own wiring. A number of
the electricians I work with have similar stories to share.

We sometimes get so used to working around electricity that we forget
how lethal and devoid of mercy it is.

When I was in high school I designed a simple disolve unit for my dad's
35mm slide projector.  I did't about floating ground and the hot side
and neutral side. So I ended up with the chassis of the projector at 120
VAC and my dad was the one who found this out as he was using it one day
and ended up completing the circuit between the projector and ground!

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