# @stem_antics on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DaVc87-gVVm
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/67391855-stem-antics-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/406b36f6db.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-07-03T15:09:45.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Stem Antics (@stem_antics) — https://gondola.cc/stem_antics

## Caption

A power line hits the ground and the danger doesn’t stop where the cable lands. It spreads outward through the soil beneath your feet, invisible and lethal, in a pattern most people never learn until it’s too late.

When an energised conductor contacts the earth, the current doesn’t vanish. It floods into the ground and radiates outward, hunting for any return path. Soil is a poor conductor, so this current forces its way through resistance, and every metre it travels the voltage drops. The result is a set of invisible concentric rings of falling potential, centred on the point of contact.

Near the wire the gradient is brutal. The voltage can fall thousands of volts across a single stride. Step across two of those rings and your feet sit at different potentials. That difference drives current up one leg, through your body, and down the other. This is step potential, and it kills people who never touched the line at all.

The physics is unforgiving:
- Potential falls with distance, steepest right at the source
- The wider your stance, the greater the voltage across your body
- A normal walking stride can bridge a fatal gap
- Wet ground carries the hazard further and worsens it
- A car resting on a live line becomes a charged island; stepping out bridges the drop

So how do you survive standing inside it? You never take a normal step. Keep both feet pressed together and shuffle, heel to toe, never letting them part. Or hop with feet locked together. Both keep your feet on the same ring, at the same potential, with nothing to drive current across you. Move like this until you are at least ten metres clear, and never return for anyone still inside.

The ground itself becomes the weapon. Respect the invisible rings, and move like your life depends on the width of a single step.

#stemantics #electricalsafety #stepvoltage #powerlines #engineering

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## Tags

stepvoltage, powerlines, engineering, electricalsafety, stemantics

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