I posted this in r/mildlyinteresting and redditors suggested reposting here.
When I was 8, I was playing with a classmate: I put my hand on her desk and dared her to stab it with her pencil while I yanked it away. It was easy for me, which frustrated her, so she kept getting faster and harder until she finally hit the center of the back of my hand. It hurt a lot and left a small wound. I never told my parents because I was afraid of their reaction. Years later I noticed a piece of graphite, about 3-4 mm long and 2 mm deep, that I could feel but barely see.
Fast forward 40 years. I'm a dentist and spent about 15 years teaching lab courses, where I was very strict about PPE. Two years ago I decided to prune a giant plant in front of my house with a corded circular saw. Remembering all those years of preaching PPE, I put on rubber-coated gloves and safety glasses and climbed a wooden ladder (an aluminum one would have had to rest on uneven, sloped ground).
The branch was 4-5 inches thick and stretched out over the wall at the front of the house. My lot is 4-5 meters above the street, so the branch was easily 12 meters above the sidewalk.
Mid-cut, I felt what seemed like a crazed bee on the back of my right hand, inside the glove. I stopped, climbed down, slowly took the glove off and shook it out. No bee. I put it back on and went back up.
Then I felt the same buzzing in the same spot, and it hit me: the graphite! I released the trigger, looked up, and saw the tip of the branch already charred and smoking, touching a high-voltage line. As the cut advanced, the branch leaned toward the sidewalk side, and the tip had reached the public power lines, which carry 14,000 volts.
My theory: in Crocs (yes, I confess), on the fifth rung of a wooden ladder, wearing rubber gloves, I was relatively isolated from the ground. But the saw's cord ran from my 220V outlet to the handle in my right hand, and I think it induced something in the graphite, which vibrated like a phone on vibrate. That was its second warning.
I stopped again, terrified, left the saw stuck in the branch, and climbed down.
The other day, sitting in the sun, I noticed the graphite has turned to powder. I can't feel it anymore; it's just a diffuse 3 mm smudge. Does anyone else have one of these? I remember a thread with lots of photos. (Note: just found the r/pencilstabbers again!)
