13 shocks in one race? ER doctors warn about 10,000 volt wires in mud runs [View all]

[warrior1]

Who thought this was a good idea?

http://www.today.com/health/13-shocks-one-race-er-doctors-warn-about-10-000-2D11641896





Here is some news that may (or may not) shock you, pun totally intended: Those muddy obstacle course races everyone seems to be doing lately can be dangerous, especially when they involve obstacles charged with 10,000 volts of electricity, emergency physicians say.

Doctors confirmed this in a series of case studies looking at the injuries that happened during a Tough Mudder event in Philadelphia earlier this year. Of the 38 racers treated in the emergency department over that weekend in June, about half suffered electrical injuries.

That's because this particular event features two obstacles that require runners to brave their way through electroshock: There’s the Electric Eel, in which participants “slide on stomach through frigid water or along layer of ice while shocks hang overhead,” and there’s Electroshock Therapy, in which they “run through a field of live wires (up to 10,000 V).”

“The types of injuries were ones that we had never seen before at a social gathering or sports-related event, the electrical injuries in particular,” says Dr. Marna Rayl Greenberg, director of emergency medicine research at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pa. “I have been practicing for over 20 years, and I have never seen an event that shocked people. It took me a while to understand what was happening to them.”

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