Guess How Much Electricity Is Need To Kill You?

A few days ago, Adam Savage had an interview with gizmodo and he they asked him, how much electricity is it need to kill a man? And he replied with 7 millliamps. Yes, that's milli, as in 1 thousanth of an amp. Now you might be thinking, well static electricity probably output way more then that every day, so how come were not all dead? This is because this amperage must be applied directly to the heart. Our whole body works as an insulator to electricity, weakening and most likely stopping the electrivity before it gets to our heart (hopefully). An effective way to kill however is lightning bolts. These carry around 1 billion volts. However, air dissapates 10000 volts of electrivity per centimetre. This mean for electricity to even get to your from 10 centimetres away through air, it requires 10000 volts. Lightning also needs to get past our clothes, which is probably wet in the event of a thunderstorm, spreading the electricty across the surface of the body, losing more energy. This is the main way lightning stroken people survive.

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This is cool info. But I wonder, what hapens to the tissues that do come into contact with the 7 milliamps. See, to figure the damage your body sustains from electricity you need to know what electricity does to live tissue. Here is why I bring this up.

If electricity at that small a "dose" kills, then why did those stick things work to bring you back to life. Do ou know what I am talking about - Back in the early stages of the electric paddle we use today to restart a heart, they used smaller paddles that they put directly on the heart while the chest was open. - So if the heart could be restarted with direct electric current, why would you die from it?

It just seems that the bodies reaction to foriegn elements and stuff needs a lot more reasearch.

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It seems like that doesn't seem right, im sure it depends on the circumstances, and all that but that seems really really low. I'm probably the one thats wrong here though as I don't really know much about anything to do with electricity, good find though.

Sarajevl, I thought your talking about defybralizers (sp?) they work because they shock your heart back into the rhythm after it was knocked out of rhythm for whatever reason. Which is why it leads me to believe that is why it depends on the circumstances on whether or not you live/die when it comes to electricity and what amount.

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