Electric Shock - Conduction of Current To and Through the Human Body

Understanding how electric current reaches and travels through the body can help us understand how and why specific accidents might occur and what medical and surgical problems may be expected.

This article, published by Open Access Journal of Plastic Surgery does an amazing job. It was written by Raymond M. Fish and Leslie A. Geddes with the objective of explaining the ways in which electric current is conducted to and through the human body, and how this influences the nature of injuries.

Part A first reviews electrical and pathophysiological principles. There are discussions of how electric current is conducted through the body via air, water, earth, and man-made conductive materials. There are discussions of skin resistance (impedance), internal body resistance, current path through the body, the let-go phenomenon, skin breakdown, electrical stimulation of skeletal muscles and nerves, cardiac dysrhythmias and arrest, and electric shock drowning.

Part B considers specific types of accidents. It discusses a number of clinically relevant examples of accident mechanisms and their medical effects. Topics related to high-voltage burns include ground faults, ground potential gradient, step and touch potentials, arcs, and lightning.

To read the article, click here or on the image above.

Mike Holt's Comment: This is an excellent article related to Electric Shock and Electrocution. Please take the time to read this!

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Comments

This leads me to believe that resultant deaths from voltage gradients may be higher than reported. Over the years there has been much confusion about what a ground is. The ground is always a reference point but it may not be zero to other reference points. Think of the hot chassis of the old vacuum tube radios. The GND symbol was used for connections to that chassis which had a killing voltage gradient to someone sitting in the bath tub. Many were indeed killed by placing this radio on the edge of the bath tub while they were in the tub water. Lightning does not have to "strike" someone to kill. The earth voltage gradient between the feet can do that. The old fly back transformers of the cathode tube television were also silent killers. Power lines have induced gradients in the ground below resulting in reduced milk production in cows. Do not assume if it is on the ground the voltage is zero.

April 23 2017, 11:12 am EDT

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