‘WIRED FOR SUCCESS’

Dog Electrocuted By Reuben Clark

Did a dog really get electrocuted in a Walmart parking lot puddle due to stray voltage?

YES, according to WBIR in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The dog’s owner was walking with the dog through the parking lot after a snowfall, and the lot had seemingly been cleared and salted to prevent people from slipping on ice, as one would expect. The dog stepped into the puddle, yelped, and fell over. The owner initially thought the dog had a seizure, but when she touched him, she was also shocked. She eventually got the dog out of the puddle, but it was too late for the dog, who died. A spokesperson for the utility company serving the area stated it was an infrastructure failure on a “privately-owned lighting powered by a privately-owned breaker.”

After asking my colleague at Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) about this, he stated that same day two dogs were electrocuted on the same spot on a sidewalk in Washington DC, four hours apart. Again, salt is used on pedestrian and vehicle surfaces to prevent ice from forming and presenting a slipand- fall hazard. Salt water is highly conductive.

My first thought after hearing of the dogs’ electrocution was of Jodi Lane, who was electrocuted when she stepped on a manhole cover that was energized in Manhattan. Every year EPRI and Con Edison host the Jodi Lane National Conference on stray and contact voltage. I have spoken at the conference twice as it relates to proper bonding of swimming pools. Salt generators are highly popular, and the pool water splashed and dripped onto the deck causes it to become highly conductive.

Stray and contact voltage is not a well understood topic, but the dangers are very real and they are also mostly preventable.

Why were the people not shocked when the dogs were electrocuted walking on or near the same energized spot? Most likely, the humans had insulated footwear, like rubber soles. However, on a pool deck, usually there is no protection between bare feet and the energized deck.

Many in the pool industry have fought against a proper equipotential bonding grid in the pool deck, as was used frequently in years past by chairing up rebar for structural reinforcement of concrete. (Rebar chairs are specially designed components made for supporting rebars, which are embedded metal bars used to reinforce newly-poured concrete.) Once fiber-reinforced concrete became popular, builders realized they could save a few hundred dollars because the fiberreinforced concrete did not require structural reinforcement. However, the metal grid in the deck creating the equipotential plane was no longer present and protecting the humans on the wet deck from stray voltage.

The 2022 U.S. Coast Guard report began including deaths from stray voltage on pool decks without a metal grid protecting it. There were three unnecessary deaths that year. Other pool owners experienced such shocking on new pools that the decks had to be torn out before they could be used, and reinstalled with an equipotential grid, which solved the problem.

The 2023 National Electrical Code was changed to eliminate the single wire, which had proven to be ineffective, and now requires a proper equipotential bonding grid in the pool deck. People have commented that a rebar or copper grid is $300 or $400 more than a single wire. But with our aging infrastructure and more power being distributed underground, it has been seen that stray voltage instances will continue to increase.

While the dangers still exist for our canine friends, the new NEC

’s simple and inexpensive solution will protect human life and provide a wonderfully enjoyable pool experience.