Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

It’s a good thing I was able to write off my entry yesterday in the morning. At around 11am there was a power failure that lasted the rest of the day, due to the typhoon. Students were already milling around the corridors and the building lobbies as early as an hour afterwards. It wasn’t until 230pm that we confirmed from one of our co-teachers returning from her class that classes had been suspended for the rest of the day.

I stayed in the department until late afternoon, and although I had been alone there for the past two hours, two of my co-faculty showed up at 530pm. One didn’t have classes for the day, but had gotten bored at their house (although they had electricity there) so she showed up here.

The other, though, who had only been teaching for two terms, called up the chairman at home as soon as she got in. From her end of the conversation, the following is what she had to report.

One of her students in the engineering electricity and magnetism lab was electrocuted during their experiment on mapping out electric fields. The students are supposed to detect the pattern of the electric field on the two-dimensional surface of a tray filled with electrolyte fluid. The electricity is coursed through two probes on either end of the tray. The students are warned not to touch the rods themselves while the circuit is on, but I guess sometimes they just forget.

This was at around 3pm. Since they are on the corner of the third floor of the engineering building, by the time they heard that classes had been suspended, they only had one set-up out of the five left, so they decided to finish it, instead of being delayed during their next meeting.

The female student said she felt the electricity course through her entire body for the singular moment she was in contact, because she instinctively let go.

When they went to the clinic, that’s where the student said her heart was palpitating, so the university doctor suggested they go to the nearest hospital emergency room.

It wasn’t until 5pm that they got there though, because of the wait for the vehicle to come back from wherever it had gone. An EKG revealed the student was fine, although she was going to be confined overnight for observation. We all concluded the palpitations were just from her shock.

That’s why in our labs in the science building, we already use the alternative set up that uses conductive paper and a 6V battery power source. When the engineering classes are eventually moved to the science building, their old experimental equipment will be disposed of also.

It reminds me of another co-teacher of mine who had a similar experience with one of his students. It was a male student this time, though, and like most guys he just shrugged it off by the time the class ended. What we found funny though was that his instructor said at the instant he touched the live rod, a spark appeared on the earring the student was wearing.

Hmmm, I guess I’ll have to relate about today’s classes tomorrow.