Back in the early nineties I was station in Germany. The barracks that I resided in was a former German army base from World War II. It was made of very sturdy concrete and yes, there were tunnels.

This story is not about those tunnels, this story is about something far more deadly. It is about how electricity and water do not mix.

While stationed there I was lucky enough to be able to pick my own room and roommate. The roommate I picked was my good friend G-Ski. You may remember him from an earlier post about a cab driver. I chose G-Ski as my roommate because, at this time, he was living off post with his girlfriend. This meant I had a room to myself as he only used the room when he had too.

Another key point about the room I chose is that it was once used as an arms room. That means it was used to store weapons. Because of this it had a very solid metal door (two inches thick on heavy hinges) and the windows had strong thick bars on them. Some might think I was living in a jail cell but I didn't care. My room was the most secure room in the building, when I locked the door no one got in without a key.

One night my fridge stopped working. Unlike most soldiers I had not been drinking that night.

Being an electronics guy I decided that I should try and fix it myself. Little did I realize that the fridge had stopped working earlier in the day. In fact, a small puddle had formed near the base of the fridge. You know where this story is going, don't you?

Well, I took some panels off and broke out my volt meter. I did not unplug the fridge because I wanted to see if it was getting voltage. It might have just been a bad switch or something that I could wire around.

I don't fully recall exactly what happened but, I electrocuted myself.

I do not know why I did not kill myself that night because the lights in the entire building dimmed for a few seconds while my foot was in the water and my hand was touching a live wire.

After a few seconds a breaker tripped and the electrocution stopped. Let me tell you right now that I now understand why crazy people used to be given electro-shock therapy. After that burst of 220 volts I felt like I was on top of the world!

I unplugged my broken fridge and went to the breaker box to reset my power. On the way there I ran into one of my friends, he wanted to know if I noticed the lights dimming a few minutes ago. I told him what happened but he didn't believe me. He didn't believe me until we got to the breaker box and he saw that the breaker to my room was the only one that was tripped.

That night I slept like a rock and did not wake up in time for revelry. I missed P.T., breakfast, roll call, work... When I finally did wake up it was past noon. I was confused and didn't know what the heck I was doing. I felt 'out of it' but I was able to get cleaned up and make my way to the shop in which I worked.

Apparently my electrocution story had spread a bit and one of my sergeants had beat on my door while I slept to wake me up. I guess his knocking was not hard enough to hear through a two inch steel door!

I was so out of it my boss gave me the rest of the day off.