As many of you probably already know, my school just opened last year in the fall of 2024. Although the school opened in late August, it was not even close to finished and was still being majorly worked on. The CTE, music, and athletic areas were all opened later in the year. Some areas of the building didn’t even exist when they first opened the building.
I was in a shop class for the first semester of that year, and that classroom was no exception to not being finished. We had to wait until late September to move in, and even then they were still working on things. They were still adding electrical circuits and conduit around the room, and the internet (and thus the IP phone and intercom systems) wasn’t hooked up until after Christmas break in that area. Near the door of that classroom was an open electrical box that had live wires in it. I’m assuming something like a light or ventilation control panel was going to go there at some point. Unfortunately, the contractors neglected to cap the ends of the wires and cover the box before they let us in the room, and of course at least one dumb teenager was bound to touch them at some point. One day, while we were getting ready to leave and the teacher wasn’t looking, one kid dared another kid to touch one of the wires. The wires that were exposed were a red and black wires, which were presumably two lines of the schools 3 phase system, which would have 208v across them. When the kid touched one of them, nothing happened because they were wearing shoes with rubber soles that were insulating. They then touched the other with the same result. Obviously, they couldn’t let that slide so they had to touch both of them at once. When they did that, the full 208v went through their hand, and they had a hard time letting go. Luckily, they only used one hand so the shock did not go to their heart and they were able to let go, so they came out mostly unharmed.
Although this event turned out fine, it could have been very bad. I saw many other opportunities for things like this to happen around the school, and I heard a rumor that this wasn’t actually the first time this exact thing happened in that room. Needless to say, they had the cover plate on that electrical box by the next day. This is just a lesson to follow the rule everyone has heard: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”. Always make sure to the best of your ability that nothing can go wrong when you are doing electrical work, or really anything in life.
Sorry for the long post 
. This was originally meant to be like one paragraph, but the words just kept coming.