And this weeks Darwin Award goes to…..

August 20th 2005, 0840B

Now this is why I trained as a medic, and not as an electrician…
The platoon that’s stationed here at Mwaro is packing up & leaving for Bujumbura today, so that they can fly home on Monday – lucky bastards :P
Anyway, with them packing up the guy I was running a lead from so that I have power in my tent has packed away the lead he was using, so I had to make another plan for juice till I leave myself on Wednesday or so. So what I do is get the length of extra flex that the other guy had extended his lead with, & spliced it to my extension cable. All is good so far, but now comes the tricky part – splicing the flex to a line that’s carrying current. There’s a fridge in the one tent that’s running off a dv box from the generator, so I figure I’ll patch the cable in there by wrapping the wires on the end of the flex around the live & neutral pins of the plug the fridge runs off. There’s nothing wrong with this plan as it stands, as that was how the power was running till now anyway – all we’ve done is take one length of cable out of the chain. So I’m sitting there at the dv box, and to make sure it’s safe I’ve pulled out both the plug that leads into the box and the plug that leads from it to the fridge. But then one of the troops asks me for a light for his cigarette, so I put down the wires & plug I was holding, turned around & lit his smoke for him, and then picked everything up again.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Yep, about 3 seconds after I start wrapping the wires around the plug I think to check that I haven’t picked up the plug that’s carrying a live current instead of the inert one running to the fridge unit. As soon I thought to check that I’ve not made a mistake, it become readily apparent that I had in fact picked up the live wire…
All I can say is that I’m very happy the power comes from a generator, and not from mains, ‘cause otherwise the voltage I suddenly found running through my fingers would have been somewhat higher. Even so it hurt too damn much to even swear, & I reckon even my beard stood on end lol
I guess this just goes to prove that the Good Lord does indeed look out for fools, drunks, & little children :P
Anyway, there was no harm done, my splice job works, and everyone else got to have a good laugh at me hopping around and swearing after my accidental defibrillation attempt.

Otherwise it’s been a quiet two days since I last typed anything up for this. Yesterday could have been better, & I was really down for the whole day yesterday. I think lack of sleep is catching up with me again, and this platoon leaving to go home on Monday is just bringing home how long I still have to go here myself. Every day that passes is a day closer to when I get on a plane home myself, but that’s still a good 5 months from now.
I could really do with a little friendly contact right now, & hearing a familiar voice would do my mood a lot of good. I’ve been feeling increasingly isolated and cut off from everyone lately, so it’s a good thing I’ll be heading into the capital soon, where I’ll be able to make a few calls.
I’m really hoping that my sense of humour improves when I’m back in regular contact with people back home, if only so that I can stop fucking whining so much – I guess anyone reading this must be about as tired of that as I am. Self pity is something I’ve never had much patience for, so I’ve been getting really annoyed with myself for sulking so much lately. I’m having a better day so far though, & overall I’m nowhere near as down as I was when I got here, but there’s still room for improvement

Anyway, that’s pretty much it for now. I think I’m going to install GTA again and indulge in a little mindless virtual violence for awhile – that’s always good for a laugh :P

1120B

Darwin Awards Pt 2 – “I’ll have the Refugee Steak, medium rare, thanks”

I just had my first real casualty for the deployment, one of the kids from the refugee camp next door that hang around the camp & help out. They’ve been busy cleaning up the base for the new platoon coming in, and this particular one decided it would be a good idea to dispose of the empty Tabard aerosols by throwing them into the fire where all the other rubbish was being burnt. I guess I don’t have to tell you that subjecting a pressurised container to extreme heat is a Bad Thing. Anyway, when the cans he was burning cooked off, he was standing just that little bit too close and picked up a few flash-burns along his arm & leg. He can be bloody grateful that he didn’t get a dose of shrapnel to go along with the burns.
The burns weren’t too bad at least, though he understandably howled like a banshee the whole time, & I patched him up fairly quickly. He shouldn’t have any scarring when they heal, providing he keeps them clean, but that may be asking a bit much judging by the way he was wanting to take the dressings off not 5 minutes after I’d put them on. That Burnshield is marvellous stuff, and it really numbs a burn quickly, but I think this kid was equating “it doesn’t hurt anymore” with “damn, but that healed quickly”. He’s in for a rude shock when they take those dressings off at the clinic to clean the burns properly :P
With a little luck the pain will teach him to be a little more careful in future. Kind of like me putting 20000 volts through my fingers this morning, one would hope lol

Anyway, I’m going to get back to my GTA now – running pedestrians over may not be as much fun as a few other things I can think of, but it’ll do for the mean time ;)