NH teen who zapped nipples during shop class sues

[Liberal_in_LA]

NH teen who zapped nipples during shop class sues

Associated Press August 31, 2010

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

(08-31) 07:04 PDT Dover, N.H. (AP) --

A New Hampshire high school student shocked so severely in shop class that his heart stopped beating is suing his teacher, the school district and the city of Dover.

Kyle Dubois and his parents claim teacher Thomas Kelley did not warn Dubois and other students of the dangers of the electrical demonstration cords in their electrical trades class.

On March 11, Dubois attached an electrical clamp to one nipple while another student attached another clamp to the other. A third student plugged in the cord.

Dubois was critically injured.

The New Hampshire Union Leader says Dubois' suit contends he suffered permanent brain damage.

Kelley resigned from his teaching position about a month after the incident. He declined to comment on the lawsuit.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/08/31/national/a070437D12.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0yDE7dDyq

[MineralMan]

1. Terminal Stupidity.

That is all.

[NYC_SKP]

10. I'm shocked.

That you would say that!

[MineralMan]

37. It's an electrifying discovery, neh?

[HughMoran]

38. Too stupid to live

:eyes:

[lapfog_1]

2. This one is too easy for the insurance company

claim of brain injury: denied. Pre-existing condition. self evident.

[Warpy]

3. I sincerely doubt they've got much of a case

since they weren't directed to do this stupid stunt. They'd have a lot better luck suing the You Tube they found it on.

The cord wasn't the problem. Plugging one end into the wall and the other end into a person was the problem.

[Vickers]

4. Who could've known that putting the heart in the path of an electrical charge

would be harmful?

:sarcasm:

I doubt attaching clamps to nipples was part of the syllabus...

:eyes:

Oh, and the brain damage? Pre-existing.

[JVS]

5. Fuck that dumbass.

[Stevenmarc]

6. It doesn't appear there was all that much of a brain to damage

[tk2kewl]

14. Right? Prove the dammage was not a pre-existing condition.

:P

[LeftinOH]

7. This is your legacy, kid. At every class reunion, you'll be known as the "nip zapper".

[oneshooter]

8. A Darwin Award wannabe n/t

[burrowowl]

48. Looks like it!

[MadHound]

9. I would say that the permanent brain damage happened before this incident,

Which would explain why a high school student decided to try electrocuting his nipples.

Another case of stupid is as stupid does. Sadly, rather than fight the lawsuit, the district and the city will probably settle.

[Ozymanithrax]

11. Well, at least he won't win the Darwin award.

So, should the shop teacher have said, "hookinng these clamps to your nipples nad plug them in to house current can cause serious injury or even death?"

[Mz Pip]

12. So from now on

the shop teachers will have to post signs telling idiots students not to attach electrical clamps to their nipples.

How much responsibility is a school district supposed to have for the idiot pranks of students? There were 3 students involved in this and not one of them thought "Hmmmm, maybe this isn't such a good idea."

[guitar man]

13. wait...what?

dude hooks himself up to AC by the nipples and then contends he has brain damage? How the hell could you tell?!! Doesn't sound like he was too bright before!! :rofl:

[hobbit709]

15. I was about 5 years old when I learned NOT to mess with electricity.

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. and this teen is in the electrical trades class - he should have had a clue

[jberryhill]

55. Well that's my question

He should have had a major clue. But the longer article suggests the teacher gave them some dangerous ideas about hazards.

[onethatcares]

29. Yeah, I talked my sister into putting two bobbie pins in an outlet

and then squeezing them together.:evilgrin: My ass hurt longer than she did after my dad got home.

[Huskerchub]

34. Me too!

And I remember exactly when, where and how it happened. Must have made a lasting impression, ya think? Maybe this poor little sheltered boy had mommy and daddy following him around all his life telling him "no no dangerous". Since there weren't there that day at school, maybe the school should be suing them for child abuse for abandoning their little darling.

[tridim]

46. I was 3, my dad was installing new stereo speakers..

And for some reason I stuck the two speaker wires into a wall socket. I found out real fast that raw alternating current, delivered to a speaker, is EXTREMELY loud!

Since then I've been very careful with wall sockets. Only got a brief jolt once since then.

[JerseygirlCT]

16. I'm sorry the kid was hurt, but really?

How stupid do you have to be not to know that prank is going to be dangerous?

[arcane1]

18. He should sue his damned parents...

for raising an idiot

[jobycom]

19. DU used to be so liberal.

I miss that DU. A high school kid in shop class is put into a room full of dangerous toys just lying around and allowed to goof off with equipment he (and two friends) aren't told how to use while a shop teacher ignores them long enough for three kids to attach a wire to one kid's nipple and plug them in, and everyone blames the kid for not being smart enough to not know better?

Yeah, the kid was an idiot. He's in high school. He's in shop, on top of that. I think the assumption of the teacher should have been "These are kids, kids do stupid stuff, I'm a teacher assigned the task of teaching them, maybe I should take a few rudimentary precautions instead of assuming they will act reasonably and wisely."

I'm not saying I know for sure the teacher was negligent, but it at least bears further investigation.

[Confusious]

40. I prefer to think of it as realistic

If you get to the point of high school and are this stupid, there isn't any help.

Next thing he'll find out he can fall.

Should we put safety devices in all the sockets in the US so stupid people don't hurt themselves? how about in your home, so your neigboors don't come over and do this. Maybe we should get rid of all the steps on a staircase, so stupid people don't trip and hurt themselves.

This is major fing nanny state shit.

[jobycom]

41. Yeah, yeah, yeah, my conservative friends all make those points. Nanny, nanny, nanny.

Why not just take seat belts out of cars, remove red lights from intersections, and stop inspecting beef, then?

[Confusious]

43. Because too people have died of those things

Up till now, in 40 years of working with electricity, I have only heard of one person hooking up his nipples to an electrical socket.

That would be this doofus.

What would you suggest? A teacher-teenager ratio of 1 to 1 so we can make sure that they don't do stupid shit that they should have learned when they were a kid? Or maybe teenager proof locks on every socket. How about a key lock for every socket for every government building in the united states.

I'm sorry, my heart doesn't bleed for people who do stupid shit to themselves when they should have know better. Doing so would allow them to continue to be Moran and me to run out of blood.

Sometimes it comes down to "don't be a dumbshit"

[jobycom]

47. Did you see the article downthread?

The lawsuit claims Kelley was negligent in that during more than one class session, he conducted experiments that belied the dangers of electrical currents. He had students hold hands in a semicircle, with students at either end of the chain holding an end of an electrical cord plugged into an ordinary household outlet, causing the current to flow through the students. The lawsuit alleges this "reckless" act on the teacher’s part led DuBois to believe the transmission of an electrical current through a person by this activity caused only a tingling sensation.

Kelley also told the students the classroom was fitted with protected circuits at the workstations to prevent harmful or fatal shocks, the lawsuit says.

skip

Kelley not only knew what the students were doing, but according to the lawsuit, may have played a part in the dare that resulted in DuBois’ injuries. The lawsuit claims "One student heard Mr. Kelley state that Kyle should try it with his nipples and that he, Mr. Kelley, would give him a Mountain Dew if he did so."

---------------

[Confusious]

49. You didn't read the entire article

It says in the article that the kid who got shocked stated it was another teenager who bet him the mountain dew.

Being selective?

I had an electronics class that had an open spark generator. It pumped the voltage up and sent a spark out through the air to another contact.
I wasn't stupid enough, even at 15, to put my finger in it. I knew what would happen.

the teacher was there, supervising the ring experiment. What is with everyone trying to make everything dangerous. It'll be lovely to have an entire generation of electricians who've never done any actual electrical work in class because of this kid.

It also says the teacher was eight feet away. I did a lot of stupid shit, not this stupid, with a teacher standing eight feet away. Like shocking other students with a charged up capacitor.

[jobycom]

50. I read it. I also read the teacher's strange, evasive answer on that question.

And I read that the teacher told them there was no danger because of the trip circuits, and that at the very least he knew about the dare.

Republicans have affected us so much that when we hear about a lawsuit our first instinct is to boil it down into a ridiculous simplicity, assume that there is nothing more to the case, and conclude that a Philadelphia lawyer is trying to pull a fast one, because Republicans have trained us to jump to those conclusions. Avoid the conditioning. Assume that a legal team can see exactly what you see, and probably more, and that they don't have a lot of time to waste on a case that will make them look stupid and possibly cost them fines and penalties as well as fines, and that therefore there just might be more to the story than the Gotcha Republican Media is telling you. They manipulate you that way.

[jberryhill]

53. Telling students to trust GFI's and breakers is insane /nt

[Confusious]

57. I'm not so easily manipulated as you think

I've taken classes like this, and we knew what would happen if we hooked our nipples up to the socket. There is always a chance something will fail, and it won't save your ass. We had enough common sense not to try.

If this isn't a payout, then why aren't they suing the kids who took the video, made the dare, or hooked him up?

Probably because they don't have any money.

[jberryhill]

60. It's simpler than that - who was responsible for safety in that lab? /nt

[Confusious]

63. The teacher

And I think it sucks that one Moran can screw up someones life.

I guess it's time to start locking up the lab equipment after lab so the morans can't kill themselves doing stupid shit.

Sucks for the rest of us.

[jberryhill]

51. Something was wrong in that classroom

Notice also the incident took place in March - well into the term of even a half year class.

I have been both a student and instructor of electrical engineering at the college level. I have never seen any instructional program involving electricity which did not include appropriate instruction in specific hazards and physiological effects. Nor have I ever seen anyone suggest that protection devices should be live-tested or relied upon.

It's one thing to say "that was stupid". Yes, it was. But how did this kid get to that point in this class where he did not have a constantly reinforced and solid notion of precisely how and why it was stupid.

[Confusious]

54. How did that kid get to that point in his life that he didn't know

120 was dangerous. They never told me "don't stick shit in the socket, or it'll fuck you up" it was assumed you knew that.

We did take CPR classes, but we knew why.

[jberryhill]

58. That's really beside the point

When you are being instructed, it goes well beyond "electricity is dangerous".

The point of electrical instruction is that, no, you are not teaching people to "avoid electricity". You are teaching people to work safely with it.

There are plenty of folks - myself included - who will touch-test 120 volt lines. You can do that if you work one-handed. You'll see a lot of techs who habitually only work with one hand.

But it's not simply a matter of voltage. Can you take a zap from a 10 kilovolt source? Sure - from a Van de Graf generator or low current coil discharge circuit.

TENS units are also high voltage, and you can work your pectorals for as long as you want.

My point is simply that gaining familiarity with electricity requires concurrent instruction in safety such that the kid should know the difference between wiring 20 students in series (which the instructor did, and shouldn't have), and getting into a situation where he had a 120v household line in a circuit across his chest. That's the entire point of teaching them to work one-handed even on lines believed not to be live.

Saying "he should know better" is like telling pharmacy students "you shouldn't poison yourself". The course of instruction needs to be a wee bit more detailed than that.

[Confusious]

59. Yes, i see what you're saying

Like you said, they were already through most of the semester. When I took a class like this, we had safety instruction in the first three weeks, and if we didn't pass, we didn't get to stay in the class. That was 20 years ago.

If there was no safety instruction like that, the school district is negligent. If the teacher didn't give it, he is. But if it was required, given and the kid passed, he is at fault.

[mindwalker_i]

52. Being liberal doesn't mean supporting abject stupidity

I learned about electricity when I was. like, two years old by sticking my finger in a plug. It hurts! I learned not to do that. So how did this kid not know what electricity was? Do we have ANY information on whether the shop teacher said that electricity is not healthy? My shop teachers told me that and it's kind of part of the basic introduction to most shop classes.

Other gems are don't stick your finger in the circular saw.

At some point people have to be responsible for being idiots.

[Dappleganger]

73. +10000

[ibegurpard]

56. you'd have a point if these were small children

a high school kid is old enough to know better

[Maru Kitteh]

65. "He's in high school. He's in shop, on top of that."

Liberal, heal thyself.

[sinkingfeeling]

69. This happened on March 11. That's near the end of the school year. So how do you know that

the teacher didn't discuss the dangers of electricity and precautions way back last September? Do you think that the 'students' should have been aware of such dangers after months of class?

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. While the lawsuit might or might not have merit

the teacher (yes there are bad ones out there) is partially at fault.

When you bring in dangerous things out... you do go through a safety protocol.

Ok at least we silly medics did.

(Oh and I think there is more to the story, on all sides, by the way)

[sinkingfeeling]

21. Maybe the 'brain damage' was pre-existing?

[revolution breeze]

22. What about the student who attached the clamps and

the kid who plugged in the cord? Not one other kid in the class said "Hey, this might be a bad idea, maybe I should get a teacher or something to stop this from happening......"? When I was in high school, in auto shop a student throught it would be "funny" to put a pressurize air hose in his rectum and air himself up. He ended up with a colostomy bag and was so embarassed by the incident he moved away.

[Taitertots]

36. But they don't have enough money

Not only is this kid the stupid, his parents are greedy assholes. Double whammy.

[IggleDoer]

23. Life is hard

It's harder if you're stupid.

[Subdivisions]

24. He's going to sue someone else for his stupidity? That's just plain stupid. n/t

[Initech]

25. Future Darwin Award winner.

[TheCowsCameHome]

26. Evidently Kyle wasn't smart enough to try it on his balls.

Better luck next time, Kyle.

[Blue_Tires]

27. more info and video here -- teacher could be in big trouble

if the allegations are true...

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/northeast/view/20100831student_who_shocked_himself_suing_school_teacher/srvc=home&position=6

for that matter, all of his classmates hoping for the 5 minutes on youtube should get sued, too...

[petronius]

30. That does sound like it's a bit complicated

From the description in the OP I was more inclined to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt, simply because I remember my own HS experience where we were able to do some really stupid things in lab classes without the teachers - no matter how conscientious they were - being aware in advance. But a teacher who saw this developing and didn't intervene would qualify as negligent, IMO...

[Igel]

35. As one teaching instructor said,

"Leave sarcasm at the school boundary. Sarcasm is never appropriate."

And that's still giving the instructor the benefit of the doubt.

However, it's also assuming that the kid didn't have the brains God gave to gravel.

[petronius]

68. I've even learned that at the university level - sarcasm will always backfire

And making students cry really fucks up your teaching evaluations. Also, it's just mean...

[damntexdem]

28. Sounds like he already had the brain damage.

Udderly stupid!

[mrs_p]

31. "The New Hampshire Union Leader says Dubois' suit

contends he suffered permanent brain damage."

I'd say the kid was brain damaged before the incident.

[Odin2005]

32. The moron should have done that to his testicles, so this idiot would not spawn.

[L0oniX]

70. +1

[Vinca]

33. It's a shame the teacher has to suffer because some kid is stupid.

Who'da thunk? Attempt to electrocute yourself and it works.

[Codeine]

39. Dumbass does dumb stuff. He does not deserve to get paid for it. nt

[depakid]

62. Dumbass doing dumb stuff is foreseeable

Foreseeable misuse is a problem- as is failure to explicitly warn or supervise those who one knows or ought to know are so inclined.

"Deserve" has nothing to do with it on that level.

[proteus_lives]

42. The judge should give him 10,000 hours of community service for being a dumb-ass.

[jberryhill]

44. Where was the teacher while this was going on?

Granted, the kid is stupid. Kids talk each other into all kinds of stupid stuff.

But as a point of information here, where was the teacher while this was being set up?

[Common Sense Party]

67. If you read the stories, the teacher was 8 feet away, very aware of

what the moron kid was about to do. The teacher may have even been involved in the dare.

The kid is obviously a dolt, but the teacher was negligent.

[gort]

45. Ohmmmmmmmm

it aint the volts, it's the Amps.

As Nikola Tesla once said, "Thomas Edison is an asshole!"


It's a fact. Look it up.

[jberryhill]

61. I found a squirrel in my refrigerator

And I asked it what it was doing in my refrigerator.

The squirrel said, "Isn't this a Westinghouse?"

"Yes."

"Well... I'm westing!"

True story.

[tblue37]

64. It sounds as though he was suffering from brain damage

before the incident. What else would explain why he would attach electrical cords to his nipples and have them plugged in?

[struggle4progress]

66. The school didn't send a "shop safety" guide and liability waiver home?

They didn't make kids sit through a "shop safety" class?

I agree this is dumbass stuff from dumbass kids, but even back when I had shop decades ago, the teacher always started off with something like, "None of the stuff here is a toy: anybody who horses around with the equipment gets suspended and earns an automatic F in the class"

[lame54]

71. Was he diagnosed w/brain damage before or after he attached electrodes to his nipples?

[L0oniX]

72. I think the student may have had "brain damage" before the incident.

[lumberjack_jeff]

74. The brain damage was obviously a preexisting condition. n/t