I was in the water up to my chest, reaching out of my in-ground swimming pool and I reached with a wet hand to change the volume on an iPad next to the pool. The iPad had a wireless speaker transmision base that was plugged in to an extension cord and was connected to Ipad with through the headphone jack. The iPad was running on batteries. The moment I touched the iPad I was shocked strongly, the pain was on both of my sides under the arms. The shock was powerful and hurt quite a lot. At that same moment the neighborhood transformer blew and took out power to the entire area (14 houses). So what I am trying to figure out is did I actually blow the transformer or did the transformer blow and send a power surge that shocked me coincidentally? There should have been at least two breakers (one on the pool equipment and one at the main fusebox) that I would think should have blown before I got shocked either way but my electrical system knowledge is limited. Yes, I will not ever have anything plugged in next to the pool again, the speakers had just arrived and I should have had them running on batteries rather than plugged in. Lesson learned.

Yeah, but you had AN EXTENSION CORD run to the poolside?? Do I really have to express how crazy that is?


Personally I think this was just an incredible coincidence. You did NOT blow the transformer. It was almost certainly a problem with the transformer. In fact, this may have even happened with no electrical near the pool at all. It could have traveled through the ground itself.

Also, the circuit breakers are not going to trip just because you got a shock, unless of course they were GFI protected like they are supposed to be. You'll still get a painful shock, but it will not kill you.

I seriously doubt you had anything to do with transformer failure unless you sustained severe injury...
Circuit breakers may interrupt a surge from a failing xfmr but it would likely take 3 to 6 cycles if at all. I've seen this and the amount damage is surprising... you were very lucky!
Take this as a wake up call...