Have you ever witnessed someone touching the electric wire with his hands and do not get electric shock? If not then check out the the below video where a person touching the high voltage wires with his hands and even turn on the light bulb by passing current through his body. Well how do these people do it? Its a crazy idea to ever touch electric wires and please don’t even try to do this, it kills. To understand why that person do not get electric shock, first understand how current flows and why we get shock while touch an electric wire.
Its a natural state we get shock while touch the electric wires supplying electric current but, there are some people who feel no shock and pain at all like the one above. It seems cruel how someone could withstand electricity where it damage muscles tissues and finally cause death. To understand this, first you should know this.
Why Do We Get Electric Shock?
Current is actually a flow of rapidly moving charges (positive and negative charges). Whenever someone touch the objects running electricity through it then charges starts flowing from that electric object or wire to the human body, because body itself has charges and is the conductor of electricity (our body mostly contains water & water is a good conductor of electricity) and provides a path for charges to flow from electric wire through the body to the ground. As Earth holds negative charge and wire has positive charges and body as a pathway for current. And, when two opposite charges gets in contact then electric shock is produced.
Electric Shock Effects on Body
Electric current is always dangerous and most of the time cause death. Well it depends of some factors how much damage electric shock can have on human body. Amount of current, voltage and time the current passing through the body and of course the body resistance are the factors which tells how bad effects electricity can have on human body, however small amount of current can cause death.
You can’t imagine how electric current could cause severe injuries to human body. Person feel tingling sensation to even muscle contraction, tissue burns, cardiac arrest, organs damage, ventricular fibrillation and finally death. It all depends on the amount of current and duration of time it is passing through the body. Even 1mA current is dangerous and about 17mA to 100mA current is enough to kill.
One more factor which affects the amount of shock one get is the the wetness, more wet the body more the shock body feels. Because in wet conditions body resistance reduces and in effect current increase as per Ohms law, Current = Voltage/Resistance.
How Do Some People Pass Electricity Through Their Body?
Now we know why we get electric shock and its effect on body but why that man barely touch high voltage wire without getting any ill-effect? Current directly depends on voltage while inversely on resistance. Amount of electric shock depends on the voltage passing through the body and amount of body resistance to oppose current. And in his case, his body has enough resistance to oppose the current flowing from wire to his body and can easily pass electricity through his body.
On an average, a person has body resistance on 0.5 mA. But persons who can withstand electricity probably have body resistance 10 times of that an average person has and that incredible strength let them pass electricity through their body and don’t feel any shock or ill-effects at all.
Comments