Re: I'm trying this at home.

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi Chris,

At 04:39 PM 7/3/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>>
>>People HAVE BEEN KILLED attempting to do this.
>
>Yup.....1. Henry Transom, a master coilsmith. And he's the ONLY one I can 
>get record of having died while attempting such a stunt.
>
>Now shall I post the list of the 5,000+ people who have died while Rock 
>Climbing over the past 100 years? How about the 100+ people who will die in 
>the Professional Racing world this year?
>

Whoa!  Statistical point of order ;-)  I count only about 7 people who
presently do this stunt.  If you add yourself as number eight and get
killed, then the chances of dying from this stunt are 12.5%.

Of course, lung cancer accounts for 34% of cancer deaths in Texas, so I
guess it is three times safe than smoking in Texas :-))  But, it takes a
lifetime of smoking there, where most stunt artists probably spend only a
few hours total "smoking" atop coils...

Statistical fooling aside, I would imagine sitting on a Tesla coil while it
is running is about very roughly as safe as open heart surgery minute by
minute.  I would think one would have to rate the danger in "minutes per
death" for such a statistic to have much meaning...  It would be very hard
to even roughly guess the total hours people have spent on coils but it is
not a lot...  One would also have to consider the expertise of the
"surgeon" (and the surgical team).  A "newbie" doing this stunt may be like
having your coronary bypass done by your auto mechanic...  Of course, by
that standard, Transtrom was a grand master surgeon...

So, it's a pretty darn messy business...  I am glad that Chris has decided
against it.  I am sure it really could be done in great safety, but it
would take a lot of time, money, testing, and engineering...  Sort of like
what went into building the Space Shuttle and the Concord.  Lots of
perfectly safe flying hours there, with the exception of a few seconds...

The people who do or have done this stunt that "I" know of are:

Present:
Dean Ortner
Brent Turner
Cynder Moon
Robert Krampf
Danielle Stampe
Bill Wysock (not sure he does this anymore?)

Past:
Henry L. Transtrom (oh!  Bad example!!)

It's sort of interesting that ~30% of today's stunt artists are women...

Cheers,

	Terry