Hi.
Back in the 1970s we had a late 1960s Belling electric fire of the type which incorporated a surround and shelves. It had 2 bar elements of open spiral construction 'protected' by an horizontal wire guard. Rising heat from two "fireglow" filament bulbs drove rotating aluminium blades to give the glowing coal effect. I quite liked that fire until I had an incident with it.
Being an inquisitive youngster at the time, I wanted to find out how quickly the element heated up from cold. I kind of figured it was dangerous to put my fingers through the guard and onto the element but thought that if I briefly touched the element on the neutral side then I should be OK. The trouble was I tapped my fingers on to the live side. My hand flew out of that fire at about 100mph. It felt like someone had hit my arm with a large hammer and was aching for about three hours after.
Needless to say I didn't try that again!
That was at a time when the only protective devices were the plug and consumer unit fuses, no RCD protection. I luckily got away with that seeing my other hand was connected to earth via the fire's casing.
Ah yes, like G6Tanuki's cat, I also recall our cat had, shall we say, a close encounter with the Belling and will never forget the aroma of cinged fur.
Quite a lethal thing really but could easily have been made safe with enclosed elements and a guard with smaller wire spacings.
Regards,
Symon