My "Shocking" Night

*Disclaimer...VERY long post ahead...LOL

Ok, first off I consider myself pretty handy. I like home improvement projects and know my way around many large power tools. So I also consider myself pretty safety conscious as well.

Um...last night I was REALLY stupid!!

I turned on the TV in the bedroom last night so I could watch a little TV before going to sleep. The satellite lost its feed and seemed to be stuck, so I decided to unplug the receiver, wait a few seconds and then plug it back in. This seems to work on the receiver in the living room.

This is a picture of the enclosure we built into the wall of our bedroom for the TV. If you notice there is not a lot of room around the TV. Well, I knew the dish receiver was plugged into a surge protector strip. What I couldn't remember was where it was. I knew it was on the right side of the TV, but it was dark enough that I couldn't see it, plus all the wires were hiding it. I did see some cords that looked like they were going towards the bedroom wall side of the enclosure. I figured my husband had mounted the strip to the wall. It seemed like something he would do. So, instead of getting a flashlight to make sure, I stuck my hand in and groped around. Well, the palm of my hand, just below my thumb, made contact with something. I ended up getting zapped really hard. I looked down and noticed what looked like a red mark/bruise starting on my palm. My hand and arm were tingling and numb. The muscles in my forearm also seemed very tense and painful. So, I instantly texted my husband (oh did I mention he is 2 1/2 hours away right now) and told him what happened. His phone had been on silent yesterday and he must not of turned the ringer back on because I still haven't heard from him. Then I tried my sister, but realized later that I texted her home phone. I guess home phones don't receive texts...LOL. So then I decided I better call the Mercy Nurse (Nurse on call at our local hospital). I told her what happened and at the end of my tale said something like, "so I wasn't sure if I should be concerned." She said "Um, yeah, you may need to go to the ER. Let's go over some symptoms and see." Well, after talking to me for awhile she decided that I was ok for the time being, but that I was to go to the ER if I was still numb after an hour. She was also really concerned about me being alone. So I told her I would call my sister and then if anything happened, she could call 911. So at 11:30 last night I called my sister and told her that she needed to talk to me for the next half hour in case my heart stopped. Yes my family has a weird sense of humor. Well, as you have figured out from this post, I am ok. My Father-in-law came over and checked everything out, but could not find where I cold have gotten zapped. So, it will remain a mystery, but I won't be blindly sticking my hands into electrical areas again...LOL!!