Lucky guy, lucky too he used a relatively thin rod, a thicker one and it would have been quite a different ending.<p>I did a similarly stupid thing one day. While repairing a clock for a display on a trade show I hooked the ground crocodile clamp of my scope to what I thought was the ground but which in fact was V- of the DC supply voltage of the neon light installation that was use to drive the display. I had a blind spot in the middle of my eyes for many days after that (and took out a fairly large chunk of the mains supply for the Eastern district of Amsterdam). The crocodile clamp totally disappeared, the scope, miraculously survived and wasn&#x27;t even out of spec.<p>Every time I use a crocodile clamp to hook it on to something I think back to that moment when the clamp makes contact and some part of me expects it to happen again.