Can You Get Electrocuted in the Shower During a Thunderstorm?

[smokey]

I'm in a 10 year old apt building. I really want to take a shower, but it's a lightning show out there. Is it a myth that you can get electrocuted taking a shower during a thunder storm?

 

[russ_watters]

Welcome to PF!

I've never heard of such a myth, but if there is one it doesn't sound like a very good one. No, you can't get electrocuted while showering in/due to a thunderstorm unless you are showering on the roof.

 

[D H]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/health/15real.html?_r=0
http://www.snopes.com/science/lightningbath.asp
http://newweb.wrh.noaa.gov/hnx/LightningMyths-1.pdf

The odds are low, but it does happen.

 

[lisab]

Hmm, with a name like smokey...

Nah, kidding!

Shower away fearlessly!

 

[russ_watters]

Wow, I'm shocked!
And corrected.

Still, I'm not seeing high odds here. Most of the Snopes accounts have them touching the piping at the time of the strike, which I can see, since the pipes are a much better conductor than the water is.

 

[guy3288]

Shower room electrocution

I have been wondering how people got electrocuted in showers..

I am referring to the type of home water heater attached to the wall inside a bathroom.

The whole gadget is well boxed up in nonconductive plastic or PVC. The hose is rubber and the shower head is also plastic, all nonconductive material.

Just curious for those cases where people got electrocuted in showers, where exactly has the victim touched? Some exposed wires?

I mean do they get electrocuted simply from holding the rubber hose and plastic shower head or have they touched some metal or wires...

I also wonder if we were just busy scrubbing and not holding onto any of that leaky gadget,
can we get electrocuted from the running water itself?

Thanks .

 

[Aero51]

If there is salt in the water that could change the conductivity very, very quickly...

 

[Borek]

The hose is rubber and the shower head is also plastic

Not always.

But when it comes to electric shocks during thunderstorms... things do happen. There was a case when the current entered the building through jumped through the iron bed, young boy (killing him), aluminum plate, iron nail, external radio antenna (which was - as far as I understand - not how the current got into the building, this part is unclear; there was a small burning below the leg of the bed, but how the current got there is not explained) and then back inside to the wall cables before getting to the ground.

The story is quoted in a book published in 1957 by PWN and written by prof. Janusz Lech Jakubowski, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, specialist in the high voltages - so I treat as a rather credible source. Originally the accident happened (and was researched) in USA, in a "camp for a young boys" - whatever it means.

 

[jim hardy]

Water pipes in the ground could be near the point of a lightning strike.
If so, your showerhead could be connected directly to the foot of a lightning bolt.
Earth in vicinity of lightning strike will be raised to substantial voltage as charge dissipates

while Earth in vicinity of your bathtub is not
so your showerhead and the water in it could be elevated with respect to the shower drain.

rare but possible.