Fascinating thread. Anyone who has been near a lightning strike, or inspected the results afterwards, will know just how awesome the power is. My least favourite place to be is on a rock-climb on an exposed mountainside. Draped in metal "protection", dripping wet, roped to an equally attractive friend, you feel like bait. It's supposed to be an exciting sport, but storms make you wonder if it's worth the candle.

In the case of an indirect strike, where a person might be rendered unconscious for a period, but otherwise alive, I think I would rather be on the beach than in the water.

Does this mean that there are times I need to take off my tinfoil hat?

I have heard that people react differently to electricity.

I was taught at one point that 100 ma arm to arm, will stop the heart. A tenth of an amp...

I have had two memorable shocks in my electrical/electronic carreer. One was "working hot" on a circuit because it was the temporary lighting circuit and shutting it down would have had the whole crew at a standstill and left me in the dark as well. Sweated up, I twisted two 120 volt wires together with an uninsulated pliers in my right hand, as I raised my left elbow and touched a grounded pipe. Though stunned, my first thought was, don't fall of the ladder! I didn't. Another was working all alone in a room. I measured a power supply voltage, 400 volts DC. I caught it arm to arm, pulled away, and just stood there for several seconds.

I can't be sure but I think both could have been deadly to some people.

Moral of the story, don't overreact, "don't fall off the ladder".

Another tip, if you shut off a circuit breaker to work on a circuit, use the one hand rule. Standing on a dry floor, dry the tips of your fingers of one hand on your clothes. Then touch all the wires with your finger tips to see if there's any voltage there. It would be much better to feel a tingle in your fingers than to get a bigger unexpected shock.

Bruce,

thanks for that lot, I enjoyed it.

It is entirely believable that people differ in their reaction to electric shocks, but I am inclined to suspect that the main reason for the variability of the outcome is in the details of how the shock passes through the body. You will be perfectly well aware that the path that the electricity chooses is subject to all sorts of positive feedback, which means that trivial differences in circumstances can redirect currents drastically. One person will get badly burnt, sometimes in spectacular patterns, whereas another under apparently identical conditions, will be apparently instantly killed. A third might recover pretty well completely after apparently interminable attempts at resuscitation.

So it certainly seems worth going on with the CPR until a medical professional tells you to stop!

One implication of the foregoing is that electricity is a lousy medium for capital punishment. For one thing it is difficult to be sure when the victim has lost consciousness, let alone when he is dead. There have been all sorts of grisly stories about the star of the performance still jerking after several massive shocks, with smoke coming out of the mouth and so on. Of course this does not prove consciousness, and perhaps it was more fun than it looked, but it certainly was not a very reassuring recommendation. What I am sure of is that it does not reflect personal differences in resistance to electric shock.

It seems that the original idea of using electricity for capital punishment stemmed from a combination of American infatuation with technology and the testimony of several people who had survived heavy shocks, that they could not remember a thing and have not felt anything special.Of course, the idea was not in itself unreasonable, though it certainly was not cogent either, but after quite brief experience it became plain that the technique was not as simple as it appeared. The apparatus went through several generations of improvement, if that is the indicated term, before it was perfected, if that is the indicated term.

Concerning the testing of the safety of electrical contacts with one's fingers, professionals of my acquaintance always used the back of the knuckles rather than the fingertips. The reasoning was that the slightest shock caused the fingers to bend away from the knuckles. Between that and the technique of touching in passing, there was no simple way of remaining in contact. Short of dealing with really high voltages, it permitted lab workers of my acquaintance to treat potentially live contacts with a casualness horrifying to outsiders.

Cheers,

Jon