Howdy!
When I was in the Army I was assigned a new Private to help me on my Tank during Q (Quarterly) services. This involves removing the engine (takes about 20 min. with an experienced crew) and removing the batteries and servicing them. The M1A1 Tank has 6 large 12 Volt truck batteries hooked together in a series/parrallel setup that produces 24V and an excess of 1500 Amps. I was giving Private Snuffy (Not his real name) the standard pre re-installation Safety talk: remove dogtags, watch, pens, or anything else that might short out the terminals. We (I) was showing him how to do the last connection. Did I mention that I FORGOT to tell him about removing rings? Well, my wrench slipped and the wrench, new wedding ring, battery terminals, and I all made momentary contact. Did you know that a 24V DC, 1500+ Amp setup will melt gold?!!!
Yep. I still have the wrench: it has a burned and melted spot that is gold plated: what's left of the ring has a large chunk melted out, and luckily, my finger, which was burnt and cauterized to the bone has healed. When all this happened, I flung the wrench (narrowly missing one of my crewmen) away from me - it felt REAL hot - and flipped my hand downward which caused molten gold to splatter on the back deck cover of the Tank, which is probably STILL there.
Needless to say, Private Snuffy was VERY impressed at my (un)Safety demonstration. For some reason I STILL can't fathom
, he never really wanted to work much with me for a long while after that.
Like Old Top said, been there, done that, got the stoopid t-shirt.
PS - if you're wondering, the Tank suffered no ill effects except a small burnt spot on the 2 affected battery terminals. They make 'em as near stoopid-proof as possible.