A man accidentally let his parakeet out the door The bird fl

A man accidentally let his parakeet out the door. The bird flew up to a power line and sat there. Unable to coax the bird down, the man stands on an aluminium ladder and reaches for the bird with an aluminium pole. Is there any potential danger in this situation? If so, what, and if not, why not? (Figure adapted from: Irwin, J. D. & Kerns, D. v. (1995). Introduction to Electrical Engineering. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.)

Solution

Yes there a potentially fatal scenario because here the man may provide a path to ground from the power line through his body. Since aluminium pole is a conductor so as soon as the man touches power line there there will be a electrical path produced through him and power passes from pole to man and then to ground.