277

I showed up to work today feeling good, it was my Friday and payday! But then my coworker shows up super sick barely able to talk and coughing all over the place. Not even five minutes after we show up for work it starts getting very windy and haboobish outside, got to love Arizona's surprise dust storms. So we grab our carts and ladders and make our way over to the 4 classrooms we were going to get done tonight. Maybe 10 minutes after being inside and starting working it begins pouring outside and loud thunder all around.

I didn't notice the bad omens around me. I just kept going on with my work like any other day while texting my friends about our upcoming camping trip. So finally I move on to the second classroom where I put in a motion sensor then moved over to the lighting J-Box to put in two power backs. I climb up all the way to the top of my 8 foot ladder (yes I know safety people I am not allowed to step on the top two steps) and I pulled my phone out of my pocket and put on one of my favorite songs.

I wasn't going to do anything with the high volt wires inside this box so I just had the lights off not the power turned off... mistake number one. So I take the cover off and very carefully try to move the high volt wires out of my way, might I add these are old thick wires that were stiff as a board. Im trying to knock one of the 3/4'' holes out of the side to put my second power pack on the box and this thing was not budging so what do I do? Mistake number two.. I pulled out my channel locks and stick them inside this live box when bam! There was a nick in one of the wires that I didn't see but my channel locks hit it just right and if that wasn't bad enough I had my left hand holding on to the metal pole that fed into that box... mistake number three.

You know what they say, three strikes your out! My whole body is pulsating and shacking, I can literally feel the 277 volts I had running through my body. The worst part about 277 is it grabs ahold of you, I was stuck. I couldn't let go and I couldn't say a thing despite me trying to pull away and scream. I stood there pulsating faster than you could imagine when one very dramatic thought raced through my head

Holy shit... this is how I die.

45 seconds... just shy of a minute when everything was starting to go black. You know when you stand up too quick and everything starts to go black starting from the outside moving in to where you can only see a tiny circle right in front of you, thats what happened when I must have shook so bad that I fell off my ladder. For anyone that knows me my greatest fear just came to life, heights and falling! I fell back taking out a few ceiling tiles, my phone and all my tools on my way down. I smacked my arm on some second graders wooden desk just before falling on my back and mostly my left hip.

Finally that scream I was trying to get out for 45 seconds came out. I laid there on the ground, no pain but couldn't breath. I could feel my heart going a thousand miles per hour when my sick coworker and boss who were right in the next room came running in trying to find me in this pitch black room. One of them made their way to the light switch only to find me laying here gasping to air with my surrounding 10 feet looking like a hurricane blew through. I calmed down pretty quick and was able to catch my breath when I lay there going through 20 questions with the guys.

Are you okay? What happened? Do you feel this? Can you move your toes? Do you need an ambulance? Yes, basicaly the whole above story, yes, yes, no. I was okay.. then the pain came, only in my left hip though. Well my boss called my dad and it took him all of 5 minutes to get there, at this point I was sitting up in a chair. I tried to tell everyone I was honestly okay but they forced me to go to the ER anyways.

I fill out about 50 pages of paperwork and finally get sent into this Antartica of a patient room when a male nurse came in and made me explain what happened and what hurt. 35 minutes later, and at this point I am literally shivering and my hip is pulsating from a pain of 5 to 7, 5 to 7, the doctor comes in and I tell him all the same things and he looks at my neck, back, and hip, then the burns on my hands. He asked me maybe 20 times if my head or neck hurt like he just couldn't believe I fell 9 feet and didn't hurt anything but my freaking hip.

Well after telling everyone I'm fine, medicine, peeing in a cup, a hip and pelvic X-ray, an EKG heart exam, being pricked 5 times to find a vein to draw blood and a full bag of fluid I'm sent home and guess what? I'm fine. I have a nice gimp and some hella fat bruised but all in all pretty okay considering.

We'll see how I feel tomorrow.