<p>Physics 101: never pee on a downed power line!!! Mythbusters worked hard to prove that it was a myth, but apparently it is not:</p>
<p>[Local</a> News | Wash. man electrocuted by urinating on power line | Seattle Times Newspaper](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011224615_apusurineelectrocution.html]Local”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011224615_apusurineelectrocution.html)</p>
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<p>OMG. Poor guy.</p>
<p>Huh. IIRC, any country boy could have told you that wasn’t a myth. </p>
<p>All you needed to prove that it wasn’t are the following items:</p>
<p>1) Stupid boy or boys.
2) Electric fence.
3) A dare.</p>
<p>Anyone around here tilt a cow before? I am not a country girl, although my midwestern pals have done this one. In my neck of the woods, a young man actually played chicken with an airplane. And lost.</p>
<p>Bunsen, the MythBusters crew actually disproved the urban legend that someone was electrocuted when they urinated on the 3rd rail of an electric train track. (Myth Busted, btw). Peeing on a downed power wire? Probably a bit more dicey, and proven fatal in this incident.</p>
<p>Oh, and I HAVE been cow-tipping before. Crazy college days… :)</p>
<p>my freshman year english teacher once told us about how she used to go cow-tipping with her family. for a while, there, we thought she was kidding…</p>
<p>I was about to emphatically (ouch) state that the article (ooch!) did not provide proof that the man was actually electrocuted (yikes) that way. Nobody saw it happen. Although it is not definitive proof, the article states, “Pimentel says there will be an autopsy but burn marks indicated the way the electricity traveled through Messenger’s body.” (carumba!)</p>
<p>Cow tipping is an urban legend. No such thing. Cows are prey animals and not easy to surprise - if there is more than one, they will take turns sleeping. If they are really asleep, they lie down. They may nap standing up but will not be out of it enough for someone to tip them over. Several people might wrestle one to the ground, but that’s not cow tipping.</p>
<p>Okay. i’m a sick person. but what bounced right into my head, from the days when my kids were young and their irresponsible parents let them watch Ren and Stimpy, was the board game R and S used to play, with that catchy jingle to go with it:</p>
<p>“Don’t whizz on…the electric fence!”</p>
<p>So, this must mean the pee has to be in a continuous, steady stream, right? If you’re standing on a subway platform and pee onto the third rail, wouldn’t it be likely that since you are further away, you’d be all right? I guess I can quit being jealous now of how easy it is for men to relieve themselves outdoors.</p>
<p>OK, I’ll bite. What is cow-tipping?</p>
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<p>Just because it can’t be done doesn’t mean that people don’t try!</p>
<p>Especially teenage boys. Just dare them. ;)</p>
<p>Oh yes - there are plenty of teens who get drunk, go out to a pasture, chase a few cows around and say they went cow tipping. That is not an urban legend. Those who claim success at it were either hallucinating, embellishing or so far beyond the attempt in years that their memories are a bit fuzzy.</p>
<p>You can get electrocuted from the power line by creating a wet area and being in it. Remember that the line was down. The implication is that electricity arced to him. That’s unlikely.</p>
<p>I’ve known people who say they’ve tipped over cows but I’ve rarely found a cow sleeping standing up, even indoors. I would never tip one because cows have protruding pelvic bones and whatever the equivalent is to shoulders - I forget - and a fall can break a bone and that means the animal would likely be killed. (I don’t use the euphemism because putting down means killed.) </p>
<p>I have put more than one bumper sticker on a cow. They don’t seem to care, though they will eat them off themselves and each other. </p>
<p>Cows are pretty cool animals, once you get past the ammonia smell of the crap that plops out and the drool. They don’t show the drooling on the cheese ads. They’re fairly curious and like to watch you work. They don’t like to be ridden and I respect that. For all the stampedes they show in old westerns, I’ve never met a cow that liked to run, that would do more than jog a little to food or a treat.</p>
<p>I grew up on a farm with lots of cows. They can be dangerous. If you get between a mother and her calf, the mother can be dangerous. The young ones are so curious as to be dangerous. They will approach until they scare themselves and then react out of fear, which may mean running over you. Bulls can be unpredictable. Most farmers won’t keep a mean bull but my Dad had one or two that weren’t trustworthy. He wouldn’t let me into the pasture when those bulls were there. I was never scared of the cows though. Chickens - now they are scary. Don’t even get me started on geese.</p>
<p>So, if you tip a cow and squirt her milk at an electric fence, would you be zapped while squeezing the udder? </p>
<p>Huh? Would you? 
:eek:</p>
<p>Last summer, H and I went on a long hike along the western cliffs of Ireland. We encountered, along the way, very steep places where I swore we were going to fall off, electric fences that we had to crawl under, and cows.</p>
<p>H was fine with the cliffs and the electric fences, but scared of the cows (in case one was a bull, actually). But the only bull we encountered ws in a separate, fenced off area with warning signs all around.</p>
<p>The cows just looked at us as we walked by.</p>
<p>Later, we described the walk to our D, who had stayed in the same area (between Doolin and Moher) a few years earlier. turned out to be the place where she’d got shocked by a fence while running from a bull. Small world.</p>
<p>I would never get close to a bull by myself, even if I knew him well, because they are so freakishly strong that even the slightest bit of aggression, even meant as play, can kill you.</p>
<p>yeah, it turns out they do keep the bulls separate, and labeled. Which is important because the right of way does go through pastures. How my D ended up in the same field as the bull I can’t figure.</p>
<p>Most of the bulls we had on the farm barely noticed us but we were in the pasture a lot. I loved to fish as a kid so I walked through the pasture to the pond several times a week. I rode my horse in the pasture and we went sledding in the pasture. My dad used the pond for irrigation so they were in the pasture all the time too. That is why he got rid of aggressive bulls.</p>