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The Water That The Coast Guard Won’t Save You From
- sippeangelo 12y agoOh electricity, such a wild beast. If we only could find a way to turn it off again after we've let it go.
- Yetanfou 12y agoOf course they could turn it off, but then the army of carp just waiting outside the parasitic barrier would take its chance and colonise the lake. Hence, no turn-off, at least not for both barriers at the same time.
- DoggettCK 12y agoClever girls.
- voidlogic 12y agoThey just have multiple barriers with sufficient separation for rescue operations... this would allow them to turn up to n-1 barriers off.
- Roboprog 12y agoThen it would function like an [air]lock :-( Open the outer door, enter the middle area, wait for the inner door. (lather, rinse, repeat for n > 2)
- twic 12y agoIf the electrodes were controllable at a sufficiently fine granularity, they could be activated in a sort of creeping barrage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_%28artillery%29#Moving_barrage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_%28artillery%29#Moving_... So there would be a number of active zones at a time, each one slowly moving downriver, pushing back any invading carp in front of them. You could switch off the electrodes in any section of the river, and then when you switch them back on again later, the pattern sweeps any occupying invaders back out.
- Codhisattva 12y agoGreat innovation. That invasive carp is crap for ecosystems.
- JshWright 12y ago> "It seemingly goes against all a rescuer’s training" Perhaps, but only if you don't have any training as a rescuer... Rescuer safety is always the first priority. A rescuer becoming another victim is just about the worst case scenario in any operation. It dramatically increases the resources needed, and does nothing to benefit the original victim. My safety (and my crew's safety) first, _then_ the victim. We don't do them any good if we're dead or injured. That's not to say you don't take calculated risks to effect rescues... That's the nature of the game. It's all about risk vs. reward. Entering electrified water to recover someone who is very likely already dead is an extremely high risk for a very low reward. Source: Firefighter/Paramedic
- angersock 12y agoThat's generally why we don't see emergency response folks running to the side of an injured person, right? No reason to slip and add injury to injury?
- jmadsen 12y agoI think people mistook this as a troll, but that's my understanding, yes. Often times an injured person is in the middle of an area where caution is needed when approaching by others; EPs are taught to approach carefully, not run into the area.
- sokoloff 12y agoThere is also a beneficial aspect that a calm approach to and overall appraisal of the scene instills in the responder. "Am I putting myself or anyone else in danger?" "Am I treating the highest priority situation? Helping the most seriously injured person that I am able to help?" "Am I assessing the entire situation, rather than fixating on the first thing that catches my attention?" Running into the scene with adrenaline pumping can be a recipe for starting sub-optimal response (albeit starting it a few seconds earlier)
- jmadsen 12y ago
- GuiA 12y agoWhy not have a net of some form on the surface of the water?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dredmorbius 12y agoLinkbait title. "Chicago's Electric Dispersal Barrier and Water Safety" would be much more informative. Or something similar.
- negativity 12y agoAt the river bottom there are multiple 160-foot wide grids of electrodes issuing 2.3 volts per inch every 2.5 milliseconds. According to safety reports, if you swim at almost any point within the range of the electric barriers that span the channel, you risk either involuntary muscle contractions or ventricular fibrillation. I wish the article provided better information about the electrical hazard. A mere 2.3 volts (per inch) doesn't sound hazardous at all, so I'm wondering if immersion in water (distribution over surface area), significantly changes the effects of the electrical field, or is it induced with very high amperage, or is the frequency (2.5 kHz) disruptive? If the surface area of an average human body is ~2 square yards, then the total delivered electrical shock sounds like it's in the 10,000 volt range, which is more readily understandable.
- kens 12y agoI don't know any more about this than the article, but 2.3 volts per inch works out to 165 volts across your body if you are 6 feet tall, which I would expect to be deadly.
- FireBeyond 12y agoVoltage across your body is not likely to be deadly. MILLIamps (~50 or so) can be enough to electrically disrupt your heart and put you in a dysrhythmia.
- pgrote 12y agoThis is a photo of the construction process used to build the barriers. https://www.flickr.com/photos/usacechicago/6482344737/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usacechicago/6482344737/