Deadly double male cord

Last Updated on 4 years by Christopher G Mendla

A contractor left behind something that could have proved deadly. 

We were working on my Mom’s place on Long Beach Island after Hurricane Sandy. Her house  had been badly damaged on the first floor. We had a number of contractors working on the repairs.

I needed to cut a footer for the kitchen cabinets. I grabbed an extension cord that was in the house and headed out to the garage. I plugged the cord into the outlet, grabbed the plug for the Sawz-all and went to insert that into the female end of the extension. After a second I realized that there was no female end. I was holding a male end in each hand. The cord had male plugs at both ends.  The male end of the extension cord was energized. The garage had been built in the 1970’s before GFCI outlets. … so . no GFCI outlet protection.. just raw 110v current.

Fortunately I have a habit of always grabbing an insulated part of any wires. I carefully unplugged the extension. I realized what happened. One of the Idiot, moron, ignorant, stupid, bozo contractors we had must have been backfeeding the house wiring with a generator. First of all, that is VERY dangerous and ILLEGAL.  The rocket scientist left the cord when they were done their job. Note – these were the same contractors who were working on a neighbor’s house. They did work on his main home which was valued at 14 MILLION dollars. 

I immediately took a pair of side cutters and cut the plugs off both ends of the cord.

Lessons:

  • Double check EVERYTHING after contractors leave a job at your house or business.
  • NEVER grab the prongs of the plug end of a wire.
  • Use GFCI outlets wherever possible. Even though there was not a GFCI in the garage, I could have just as easily tried to use the cord in any of the outlets in the house that are not GFCI protected.
Deadly Double Male extension cord left behind by a contractor.
Deadly double male cord

About the author Christopher G Mendla

I am a full stack web developer, IT Manager, Project Manager, Educator, Technologist and someone who maintains a keen interest in life and the world around me.

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