2-year-old Thai girl in coma after being hit by an electric shock at an ATM

[oldsailor35]

They should make the key pad plastic buttons,instead of the metal ones. It will be cheaper to make and save lives.  Then build fences with bamboo 3 ft high around the ATM s to keep kids away and stop wild soi dogs peeing on them,further saving lives.Create even more power cuts thereby turning the machines off for 3 hours every day at unspecified times further reducing deaths and ATM fraud. Pay a Cambodian 200 Baht a day, to touch the machine every hour to test it.complete with free lodgings inside the machine.Further reducing deaths to people who may be rich enough to have a bank account.( don't make a work permit available so he cannot claim any compensation later). These are good Thai logic reasoning's,oh how you make them laugh talking constantly about green wires.

Good luck to the girl 

ASEAN is not here yet. So please use Russians !

[hugh2121]

Far too many metal cased electrical products sold in Thailand with 2 pin plug i.e. unearthed. THEY ARE UNSAFE! Especially if they are close to water or humid air or condensation.

 

The bank staff apparently already knew the ATM had a fault and was giving users electric shocks but they couldn't be bothered to close it and have it fixed. The manager responsible should now be charged with murder.

 

That's the way I see it.

[attrayant]

Yes that's part of the problem, but in reality the problem is multi-faceted. Sell a refrigerator with a proper three-prong plug and what do you think the buyer (whose house has only two-prong outlets) will do? They will either use a 3/2 prong adapter or snip the ground prong off. Either way, the result can be deadly.

How can you prevent them from doing that? Establish (and enforce) safety codes that require grounded residential service. Sadly, this will never happen in Thailand. There are just too many old houses and makeshift shacks, and no regulatory oversight or inspection requirement when properties change hands.

And suppose we did manage to get the infrastructure up to code. There are so many different plug configurations out there, probably a third or half of them would be incompatible with whichever receptacle style a house were upgraded to.

This is as close to the proverbial gordian knot (an intractable problem usually "solved" by cheating) as you'll ever see.

[spidermike007]

It sometimes seems like the cost of life is considered to be pretty low here in the LOS. Why such a dramatic lack of public safety. When you look at the electrical wiring, it is no wonder more people do not get fried. Feel bad for this little girl. She did not deserve this. Hope the bank is on the hook for a lot of money. They might learn something from this. Hope others do to. What on earth is wrong with a little some preventative measures?

[brfsa2]

Yes that's part of the problem, but in reality the problem is multi-faceted. Sell a refrigerator with a proper three-prong plug and what do you think the buyer (whose house has only two-prong outlets) will do? They will either use a 3/2 prong adapter or snip the ground prong off. Either way, the result can be deadly.

How can you prevent them from doing that? Establish (and enforce) safety codes that require grounded residential service. Sadly, this will never happen in Thailand. There are just too many old houses and makeshift shacks, and no regulatory oversight or inspection requirement when properties change hands.

And suppose we did manage to get the infrastructure up to code. There are so many different plug configurations out there, probably a third or half of them would be incompatible with whichever receptacle style a house were upgraded to.

This is as close to the proverbial gordian knot (an intractable problem usually "solved" by cheating) as you'll ever see.

 

really easy, change the plugs. it only costs 100 bath each, maybe 5 plugs can be changed in the houst, still cheaper than what they spend on a weekend on alcohol.

 

I've done to every place I have moved. on a house I installed long thick copper pipe, 2 meters deep, at the back of the house wall to create the ground that was non existant, then wired it to most plugs. By chance replace all the thin cables rated 5-10A to decent 20A copper cables, to actually match the kill swith Amperage.

 

Thai electricians are so idiot relating to safety, I see many times they changing the kill switches to a large because they keep cutting fromt he overload of current, for example, they have 10A cables, but use 15A switches so they can have all the air-conditioners running on hot days.

LOS, land of stupidity!

Edited August 16, 2014 by brfsa2

[attrayant]

 
really easy, change the plugs. it only costs 100 bath each, maybe 5 plugs can be changed in the houst, still cheaper than what they spend on a weekend on alcohol.

All the houses I've seen have poured concrete walls with the electrical cables sealed up inside. You'd have to run an exposed ground wire along the baseboard and on the surface of the wall tiles up to the new receptacle, which would look like hell. For a small house that would probably cost two month's wages. I suspect most would rather live with the risk (rationalizing that they'll just not touch any scary electrical-looking device) than spend so much money with no tangible benefit.

And speaking of surface-mounted wiring, that mess should be eliminated too. But then we're talking about interior stud walls and steel conduit... all adding to the cost of construction. It's just not going to happen. As long as enforcement of safety codes remains lax, houses will continue to be built as cheaply as possible.

[thaibeachlovers]

Sadly, I'm not surprised.

 

I was bought a computer at Big C, but it gave me shocks when I touched the casing, so it got returned pronto.

[thaibeachlovers]

 

 
really easy, change the plugs. it only costs 100 bath each, maybe 5 plugs can be changed in the houst, still cheaper than what they spend on a weekend on alcohol.

All the houses I've seen have poured concrete walls with the electrical cables sealed up inside. You'd have to run an exposed ground wire along the baseboard and on the surface of the wall tiles up to the new receptacle, which would look like hell. For a small house that would probably cost two month's wages. I suspect most would rather live with the risk (rationalizing that they'll just not touch any scary electrical-looking device) than spend so much money with no tangible benefit.

And speaking of surface-mounted wiring, that mess should be eliminated too. But then we're talking about interior stud walls and steel conduit... all adding to the cost of construction. It's just not going to happen. As long as enforcement of safety codes remains lax, houses will continue to be built as cheaply as possible.

 

<You'd have to run an exposed ground wire along the baseboard and on the surface of the wall tiles up to the new receptacle>

?????? That's why you can buy capping at any big ( or small ) building supply store.

[attrayant]

Sadly, I'm not surprised.
 
I was bought a computer at Big C, but it gave me shocks when I touched the casing, so it got returned pronto.

That's not the computer's fault. My Dell desktop that I brought with me from the states does the same thing if I plug it into an ungrounded outlet. I measured about 85 volts on the metal parts of the chassis. 
 

That's why you can buy capping at any big ( or small ) building supply store.

I wasn't sure what capping is, but a Google search seems to show it's what we would call cosmetic molding. That would certainly help make it look less like crap if you've got no choice but to run saurface wiring, but now you've just added even MORE to the cost of an upgrade. I half-suspect many people here wouldn't want their residential service grounded even if it were offered free of charge. "You're going to do what to my house? Why? Everything's working fine!"

[Tywais]

Sadly, I'm not surprised.

 

I was bought a computer at Big C, but it gave me shocks when I touched the casing, so it got returned pronto.

 

You will unlikely find any desktop computer that won't do that without a ground.

[Maroon Watcher]

Can we have an UPDATE on safety issues - Thanks