I was electrocuted by a mains power line and no one died

In August 2007 I was due to take part in an Edinburgh Fringe ‘happening’ where I’d be delivering cakes and quips at an alternative ‘high tea’ event (in costume of course). It was fun, wholesome and a bit bonkers. On that particular Sunday I didn’t make it though because I got electrocuted by a mains power line on the way.

It was a dreich Sunday morning. One of those kinds Scotland is so famous for it had to create the word ‘dreich’ to embody it. Grey, cold, wet air that esconces itself in your very pores, crawls up into your bones and weighs down: dreich.

I was due to be at the venue for 1030/11am. Suitably, I got up early and- with my suitcase on wheels in tow- I motored down to the bus stop which was a ten minute walk away. It was about 8am on a Sunday. And as it’s Glasgow, and it’s Sunday, I was the only person I encountered on my way down. I huddled into my coat, an umbrella useless in such conditions, trusting I’d be at the bus shelter and warm vehicle within minutes. But it was not to be.

On arrival at my stop I noted the bus shelter was void of people-expected. I stopped under the canopy waiting for the 38 bus to deliver me to the train station, and subsequently to Edinburgh. Little did I know that at that moment the shelter was live with electric current and I’d be in the hospital an hour later. I choose to stand to scan the road ahead to ensure the incoming 38 would not miss me. Looking into the misty road I saw another bus, a 12, approaching. As it came forward it seemed to aim for the large puddle in the gutter in front of me, causing me to fall back to avoid a wave of water (which I didn’t) and for me to brush agains the metal bench.

It felt like the images you see of cartoon characters being electrocuted. My whole body sizzled from the inside for half a second. Soaking wet and (miraculously standing) in a state of shock I realised what had happened immediately. No sooner did I come to that conclusion than a second bus whizzed forward aiming for the same puddle causing me to fall back a second time and get another zap.

Now thoroughly drenched, shaking and crying I flagged down the next bus. In hindsight the whole thing all seems perfectly mad. The driver slowed down and eyed me up. A mad drenched American woman screaming through tears ‘I’ve been electrocuted by this bus stop’! I don’t remember what exactly he said but the result was he drove off without helping me.

Soon another bus passenger arrived to get his bus. I don’t remember the interaction at all. The next thing I knew I was in emergency being assessed by a medical team. Quite miraculously I only sustained internal bruising. The doctor told me if I had been less healthy, or older, or younger I probably would have died.

I heard that within minutes the bus shelter was cordoned off. Crews were there for a week. Somehow the mains power line beneath the ground had ‘connected’ to the metal shelter above making it alive with current. It could have been much worse.

At the time my American family told me to sue. But as Scotland’s legal system does not lean into that kind of culture I was unable to get anywhere with a claim. After all, I didn’t die. As a self employed person it was even impossible to demonstrate loss of earnings. So I rallied, healed and moved on.

But something occurred to me recently about the event and the suffering I sustained that sometimes our trials, our tribulations and the benefit they bring is not seen. Our ego and our curiosity wants to know that the good we do, or even the bad that happens to us or to those around us ‘is for a reason’. We want it to be the plot in a novel, a linear through line we can find personal catharsis. When in fact, so much of what we do and what it blooms is never seen by us.

I am reminded of that scene in the film ‘Bruce Almighty’ - Bruce (played by Jim Carrey) is given the task of ‘being God’ for one day. People’s prayers flood into a computer main frame and Jim’s immediate response is to ‘give everyone exactly what they ask for’.

And (perhaps predictably) things start to go crazy. As a parent I know I cannot give my child everything he demands. I try to give him what he needs, and sometimes that is exactly against his wishes. In today’s algorithmic dopamine driven culture the idea of control, of delayed gratification or of not understanding how things are going to work out leads us to ‘the easy fix’. We cannot understand how not getting what we want, or ‘having something bad happen to us’, might lead to something good. In my instance I (seemingly) kept people from dying that day. I suffered physically and economically as a result, but I lived. How many moments do we pass not knowing the great impact it has on people’s lives?

There is a theological concept I remember learning about some years ago called ‘the seamless blanket’. The idea is that our lives are a threads in one great rug all tied quite tight together and what we do impacts on others lives because of we are all part of this great magnificent miraculous life. We don’t understand how these parts interact or what one threads impact will have on another but somehow it makes a life. And we should not forget that. Sometimes we cannot understand the bigger picture and we are not meant to. So we get up, we try and make good decisions and we survive. And that is the most extraordinary gift there is.

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