MikuEmpowered t1_ixyhjw3 wrote on November 27, 2022 at 10:53 AM

Your heart beat is regulated by your natural pacemaker, which generates small electric voltage. When you induce a small voltage, this fuks up the pacemaker, and in severe cases, causes fibrillation. The whole reason your heart works is through a steady rhythmic beat, its the different contraction that causes the blood to pump and create a flow.

Higher current causes the entire heart to contract at once, which also fuk up the rhythm.

If you do not bring the rhythm back (usually through a defibrillator), your heart fails to pump blood and you die.

Electricity also generate heat, the higher the resistance, the more heat is produced. Flesh, is not exactly conductive, so when a very strong electric shock passes through you, it will cook along the path.

beachbanana17 t1_ixylpjv wrote on November 27, 2022 at 11:51 AM

Does this mean an electric shock victim where the heart has been “disrupted” has a fairly good chance of survival if you keep up CPR?

Vadered t1_ixyq1l1 wrote on November 27, 2022 at 12:45 PM

CPR will not save anyone from dying on its own. What CPR does is basically manually force blood through the body. It's not as good as a real heartbeat, so you'll still die from lack of oxygen getting to organs eventually. What it DOES do is it serves to slow down the process of dying until real help arrives that can hopefully address the real problems.

In terms of your question, it depends. If the pacemaker is still firing but out of rhythm (called an arrhythmia) and you can keep somebody alive until a defibrillator arrives and it arrives pretty quickly, then yes, they have a decent chance. If the rhythm has fully stopped, no defibrillator in the world will save them, unfortunately.