A rock musician who suffered horrific burns after he was electrocuted by his guitar for TWO MINUTES during a sound-check for a gig has been awarded over £6,000 in compensation.
Dominic Zyntek, 23, said he thought he was going to die after being zapped with almost 500 volts on board a P&O ferry on November 28, 2012.
The lead singer of AC-DC tribute band Vinyl Countdown had been preparing for the gig on board the boat when he suffered the shock as plugged in his Les Paul electric guitar.
Ironically, he was warming up to perform songs from the Australian rockers’ back catalogue called Flick On The Switch, High Voltage and Live Wire.
He was left with nasty burns to his hands and had to be rushed off the boat when it docked at Hull to Hull Royal Infirmary.
Doctors bandaged the electrical burns on his hands – which were caused by a strong current from a faulty amp.
The incident left Dominic unable to perform with his group for more than two months and his £400 Epiphone Les Paul guitar was also destroyed.
The singer has now won a £6,240 settlement from P&O Ferries – who admitted liability for the incident which happened on board The Pride of Hull ferry on the way back from Rotterdam.
Dominic, from Coventry, West Mids., said he felt like he was “burning alive” when he suffered the massive shock.
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He added: “It was a truly terrifying experience.
“All I can really remember is being given the all-clear to play and as soon as I put my hand on the guitar, the next thing I heard was screaming.
“I honestly thought I was going to die.
“It was like I was being burnt alive for a few minutes and the resulting burns on my hands were extremely painful.
“I didn’t realise at the time, but I had bit my tongue so I was spitting out blood and the drummer shouted out ‘he’s coughing up blood, he’s going to die.’
“I had to have silver wraps on my hands for weeks to help with the healing and the scar tissue still causes me pain even now.
“My guitar was ruined and unfortunately I couldn’t do either my part-time job at Sainsbury’s or complete any gigs with the band for around five weeks.
“Thankfully, I got justice, and hopefully other businesses will realise how important it is to carry out health and safety checks.”
Shockingly, another member of the entertainments team had also been sent to hospital in Rotterdam the previous night after receiving an electrical shock from the same equipment caused by a faulty adapter.
Sally Rissbrook, personal injury expert at Irwin Mitchell who represented Dominc, said: “This was a highly distressing and painful accident and Dominic was extremely fortunate to come away only with burns to his hands as the situation could have been much more serious.
“Dominic was informed that it was safe to use the equipment even though a separate incident happened the previous night where Dominic’s manager was taken to hospital as precaution after being electrocuted on the same stage.
“This is highly unacceptable and another situation where poor health and safety has led to a person being badly injured at work.”
After the payout, the ferry company said it took prompt action to prevent such an accident happening again.
A spokesman for P&O Ferries said: “This accident happened in 2012 and as you’d expect resulted in an immediate investigation.
“Action was taken to prevent it ever happening again by the installation of an extra circuit breaker.”
Really – electrocuted. He shouldn’t be alive to tell his story, as electrocution is a fatal electric shock.