[Jukebox-list] Grounding Issue

[Don Tutt]

Wes, yep wattage, or power is the killer. Watt ah wuz saying is in the case 
of your standard garden variety electrocution.... that power whether it be 
large or just small enough, will, if it is applied at the wrong part of the 
heart beat, cause the heart to beat out of synchronization, or in other 
words to fibrillate.  You might or might not die depending on the type of 
fibrillation and how fast you get help resetting the heart to its normal 
rhythmn.
When the medical folk electrocute you with a defibrillator, it is still the 
process of applying power across your heart. The power is a brief pulse and 
its energy is controlled and preset in joules at the discretion of the 
operator. The difference with the application of the jolt of juice from the 
defibrillator is that the defibrillator machine has an electronic sensing 
circuit that analyses your fibrillating heart beat and selects the best spot 
to place the jolt so as to reset your heart into its normal rythmn.
The jolt we get from mucking about with our stuff is not properly 
synchronized with our heart and so, again it becomes a crap shoot as to 
whether the jolt is so badly timed as to cause a heart attack.
When the current path is not through the heart, then no power is developed 
across it and your odds of avoiding fibrillation improve.
If you have an older heart, compromised by infarcts and other issues 
involving valve leakage etc, accidental electrocution obviously isn't a 
desired challenge for it.
 Don

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wesley Dean" <wesleydean at cox.net>
To: "Jukebox mailing list" <jukebox-list at lists.netlojix.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2006 6:17 AM
Subject: Re: [Jukebox-list] Grounding Issue


>    Don, the misnomer is that voltage is fatal. This is not true, it is the 
> wattage consumed by the body that will kill you. The wattage is calculated 
> by the amount of load the body presents. The load is calculated by the 
> resistance of the body. The resistance of the body is determined by the 
> amount of surface area exposed to the voltage. In other words, a nine volt 
> battery can be lethal if enough surface area is applied. The application 
> of higher voltage is enjoyed because a higher resistance the body offers. 
> Wes
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