Pool water and bird poop

[EskimoPie]

They definitely look like candidates for a Darwin Award!

A buddy of mine sent me that with a similar subject line... I was thinking they are really extremely stupid or extremely smart and just trying to prove a point... I'm not an electrical engineer, but I think they should be safe... electricity always takes the path of least resistance... it's a rubber pool so obviously there is no ground path for the electricity to flow through the water, through them, into something else... All that should happen is that the first plug connection in the water would short the hot and neutral lines and all the current would flow right back down the power cord. Potentially the water could all be charged to 120V but it's not the voltage that kills you, it's the current. Someone correct my thinking before I go test this theory myself!

 

[JasonLion]

There are a wide variety of things that might happen starting with blowing the circuit breaker on either the outlet strip or back at the main panel. Some of the rather less likely variations, for example: only the hot lead shorts to the water - through the people - through a hole in the liner to ground, include the possibility of killing everyone. The odds of surviving are fairly good, particularly if the outlet strip is plugged into a GFI outlet, but they aren't 100%. Not something I would ever want to try.