Submitted by EaAeEaAe10 t3_z5y04l in explainlikeimfive
Figured its an interesting question Haven't seen anyone ask this before either
Comments
TorakMcLaren t1_ixz4rle wrote
To expand (pardon the pun), muscles work by contracting when electricity goes to them. Your nerves send electrical signals, and the muscles pull. If you constantly pass electricity through them, they'll stay pulled, and you won't be able to relax them to be able to breathe.
The heart is a muscle. Chambers of it expand and fill with blood, then contract (thanks to a wee electrical timer) and fire blood around the body. Rogue electric signals can mess with this timing and can make it stop.
ursois t1_ixyh6lg wrote
2 possible ways. The first, for lower levels of current, it can disrupt the electrical signals of the heart. This is usually how people die from household current. The heart is regulated by electric current, and an outside current can make the cells contract and not stop contracting, preventing it from beating normally.
The second way, usually for very powerful current, is by destroying internal organs and other body tissues via heat damage. This is how lightning bolts, high power lines, and electric chairs work. That's also how that guy in that one awful "wrecked" video is able to crawl after grabbing the wire inside a high voltage transformer. It cooked half his body, but missed his heart, so it took him a couple of minutes to die. Don't play with electricity, kids.
jahan_kyral t1_ixygptc wrote
Well when you complete a circuit or are shocked. You do so because of
1 you're the path of least resistance. Meaning your Ohms is less than AIR and EARTH. So it is easily passing through you. Not to mention blood being full of iron is a pretty good conductor. Unless you can make yourself separate or not a ground. This is why distilled water is used around electrical components it can't pass through it nor will it short out, as well as Faraday cages/suits, that equalizes you to the potential trying to ingress. So if it's 1 million volts you will be equal to it and thus not harmed. Granted it is amperage that kills you voltage at a certain point has an enormous amount of pressure and can also kill you if it explodes. This is how tasers work... high voltage low amperage... it hurts but won't kill you (typically).
2 Electricity wants to disappate because it's polarity, be it negative or positive charge it cannot stay so close to other like charges so it pushes in any direction it can easily travel to earth. Thusly you being the conduit. You suffer from it.
Most things besides earth/ground do have what is known as an avalanche point or breakdown. Air is 1 cubic inch per 1000v. So at 1000v electricity in normal air conditions (normal humidity) will jump 1inch of air to another lesser potential as a means to get to earth.
MikuEmpowered t1_ixyhjw3 wrote
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
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
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.
manofredgables t1_ixzmvig wrote
Our nerves use electricity among other mechanisms to coordinate very vital things like heart rate, breathing and the entire brain. Throwing in a bunch of external electricity can make any sort of crazy malfunction happen.
VulcanVisions t1_iy1erh8 wrote
Your heart has a little part called the AVN which generates it own electric current, which causes the heart muscles to contract in a regular pattern.
An electric shock overwhelms the AVN, causes a kind of shot circuit effect where it overloads, and the heart loses its rhythm, killing you.
istoOi t1_ixyh53l wrote
A brief shock can lead to heart arrhythmia which might be fatal.
A continuous shock prevents the muscles from relaxing which isn't good for things like breathing.
And if the power is great enough, permanent damage to the nerves and internal burnings are definitely fatal.