...is so vague as to be misleading, I think, unless the other articles were complete fabrications.

I disagree about the loco parentis issue, though, as these boys were evidently long-time electrical students, and ought to have known the dangers inherent in high voltages. This is like saying that if the boy was in ROTC and they'd gone out to a firing range for marksmanship training, the teacher would be at fault if the boy pointed the weapon at his own head and pulled the trigger, because he didn't specifically warn him that a bullet through the brain might kill him.

The fact is that we allow adolescent children to do all sorts of dangerous things, and can usually depend on them to be properly concerned with their own safety. In home economics classes, we have real cookers with real fire or electrical elements -- all of which have the potential to cause serious harm -- but few people stick their heads in the oven and turn on the gas, or decide to sit on a burner to combat the chill.

I suppose a clever lawyer could question the wisdom of conducting the class with anything like mains voltages, though, as a twelve-volt current is perfectly adequate to become familiar with the properties of electrical current, but the fact is that unless you do something incredibly stupid, electricity isn't all that dangerous. If one doesn't deliberately create a path across your heart, or do so through ignoring the precautions that would have been covered on the first day of training, all one will receive from ninety volt current is a jolt, which will teach one to be more careful in future.

The basic rule, aside from never touching an energised wire, which he clearly did deliberately, is never make a current through the heart by touching a circuit with one hand whilst holding or touching any conductive object with any other part of the body. If he'd tried, this guy and his friends couldn't possibly have arranged a more efficient killing apparatus using readily available materials . This is, in fact, the basic principle of an "electric chair" used for judicial execution. One electrode is clamped to the head, another is clamped to one ankle, and the executioner turns on the current.

Because the self-arranged victim had clamped himself to the source of current, the natural convulsive contractions of the muscles, which would usually remove one from contact with the power source, were ineffective.

I personally feel there's a much better case for attempted homicide, probably murder -- since they acted in reckless disregard for the safety of the nearly dead victim, knowing that a fatal outcome was possible -- against both of the two participants who survived this stupid stunt.

The stories of the teacher egging them on sounds like a self-serving lie to me, although it's possible that the town is simply filled with cretins.

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style