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0 pointsroenxi6y ago0 comments

I've no particular experience working with electricity so maybe you just know what you are doing - but at risk of being a know-it-all on the internet that is not a very safe approach. In an industrial setting any electricity related accident is cause for a trip to the hospital no matter how minor.

For starters you don't want to be casual about 110 volts [0] and for seconds the systems that control heart rhythm use electricity. An electric shock can cause a heart to just stop some hours later (happened to a family friend as far as we can tell).

It is invisible, can kill and humans don't have the right nerves for pain to be an indicator of how bad the damage is. Electricity is hazardous and work on it should leave no scope for surprises.

[0] https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/physics/p616/safety/fatal_cur...

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kozak6y ago

Can someone please point me to details of a biological mechanism that can cause someone to die hours after having seemingly survived an electric zap just fine? I never thought such things are possible.

roenxiOP6y ago

https://www.powerstudies.com/blog/what-does-severe-electrica... .

I'm guessing at the exact mechanism, but I assumed the shock knocks the heart rhythm regulators out of sequence and the body can cope for a while but eventually goes in to cardiac arrest. There is some argument about whether symptoms spontaneously show after 12 hours [www.journalagent.com/travma/pdfs/UTD_18_4_301_305.pdf - linked from said article].

Cells have a bunch of interesting electrical properties - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrophysiology . I recall a somewhat humerous story when they discovered electricity. Galvani made a frogs leg twitch and hypothesised something like electricity in the leg. Volta said the idea was bunkum and it was caused by the different metals being used for the experiment. Volta redid the experiment without the frog and someone did Galvani's experiment without the metal so everyone got to be right.

jfim6y ago

Electrical shocks can cause blood clots (deep vein thrombosis) [1] and rhabdomyolysis [2] due to muscle damage, among other things.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096834/

[2] https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/injuries-and-poisoning/ele...

joncrane6y ago

Would both of those conditions be asymptomatic between the precipitating event (electric shock) and sudden death hours later?

aaron6956y ago

Pretty much an urban legend.

Basically it's 'possible' to get cardiac arrhythmias that don't kill you immediately and might kill you later. But not proven, so you're better off learning about not getting zapped than this possibility. Or learning CPR.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00392-019-01420-2

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3888927/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658458/

JoeAltmaier6y ago

There's a term ambulance drivers use, "Walk, talk and die". For victims of car crashes that got a hard knock to the head. A brain bleed in the brain stem (if I'm remembering it right) will build up pressure until the stem suddenly disconnects.

Not electrical, but such syndromes seem to be real.

tialaramex6y ago

Walking Ghost phase is a phenomenon in severe exposure to radiation. The patient survives initial ill effects (probably with advanced medical treatment) and now feels fine. They have no nausea, they can walk and talk like anybody else. If you tell them they're actually dying they likely won't believe you. Inside cell reproduction has stopped, and as enough cells naturally die without replacement over the next few days their systems will cease functioning and they'll die of multiple organ failure.

Electricity definitely won't cause that, but yeah, humans can't sense all the terrible things that might have gone wrong with their bodies.

dreamcompiler6y ago

It's quite real. This is why we try very hard (everything short of kidnapping) to take people to the hospital after a bad car wreck ("high energy mechanism of injury" is the term we use) even if they're walking around saying they're fine.

kube-system6y ago

Adrenaline is a heck of a thing. I know someone who similarly said they were fine and wanted to go home after being hit by a car. They had fractured vertebrae and their spinal cord would have likely suffered permanent damage if it wasn’t immobilized as soon as it was.

the-peter6y ago

The EMTs didn't try very hard when I was flipped by a drunk driver. I crawled out of my window and told the EMTs I just wanted to go home and they said 'ok'.

Cthulhu_6y ago

Yup, definitely - this is why people will be asked if they blacked out, if only for a little while, after a fall. If they did the impact was severe enough to cause damage. And of course tight monitoring after head trauma.

dreamcompiler6y ago

You're right. When I was young and stupid I did wiring repairs on 110v circuits without bothering to switch them off. I got shocked a lot, but now that I'm older and smarter I know I just got lucky.

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kozak6y ago

roenxiOP6y ago

https://www.powerstudies.com/blog/what-does-severe-electrica... .

jfim6y ago

Electrical shocks can cause blood clots (deep vein thrombosis) [1] and rhabdomyolysis [2] due to muscle damage, among other things.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3096834/

[2] https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/injuries-and-poisoning/ele...

joncrane6y ago

Would both of those conditions be asymptomatic between the precipitating event (electric shock) and sudden death hours later?

aaron6956y ago

Pretty much an urban legend.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00392-019-01420-2

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3888927/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658458/

JoeAltmaier6y ago

Not electrical, but such syndromes seem to be real.

tialaramex6y ago

Electricity definitely won't cause that, but yeah, humans can't sense all the terrible things that might have gone wrong with their bodies.

dreamcompiler6y ago

kube-system6y ago

the-peter6y ago

The EMTs didn't try very hard when I was flipped by a drunk driver. I crawled out of my window and told the EMTs I just wanted to go home and they said 'ok'.

Cthulhu_6y ago

dreamcompiler6y ago

You're right. When I was young and stupid I did wiring repairs on 110v circuits without bothering to switch them off. I got shocked a lot, but now that I'm older and smarter I know I just got lucky.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse