That and time. You could get hit with high volts and current, but still be fine if the exposure is short. I have had a few 240v mains shocks on high current fuses, but they were all pretty quick and I had nothing but very slight burns and sore muscles for about ten minutes.
However, there is definitely a risk here, albeit what appears to be a manageable one. Perhaps there could be some use in building volt meters that glow into gloves for emergency responders to help mitigate some of the risk.
When I was young and stupid, I did this. Suddenly felt some tingling sensation in my fingers, threw the leads away and jumped back. Most certainly saved my life and drilled in my head how dangerous it is.
Still get a sinking feeling in my stomach whenever I am at some switching station below the 380KV leads, remembering that day. Especially after knowing people who got into 120KV, and what happened to them...
Electricity is dangerous. In every form. Period. Keep your fingers away from it when you don't know what you do. Household appliances can not only kill you on the mains side. Microwave transformers, flyback circuits, burner igniters, HV Car Ignition Systems...
There are plenty of ways that it could result in accidental deaths, just not by electrocution. For example, if you have an open container of gasoline (also known as a fuel-air bomb) and you accidentally strike both jumper cables together (spark).
It only takes 100 or 200 mA to kill. This is probably not enough current to melt or break any conductors, the chargers are typically designed to deliver 1,000 mA or more. Off-brand chargers are known electrocution hazards and this is not the first case of injury, not even remotely.
Remember that heating follows P = I^2 R law, so it is entirely reasonable that the conductors wouldn't melt before the attached person dies. Current across the heart is not the only way to die from electricity, but it's not really that hard to accidentally get current across the heart anyway. For example, if your arm touches the energized phone case and your leg brushes against a metal pipe in the house, that could easily complete a lethal circuit.
yes, but the actual amount of current that your organs are exposed to depends on the the resistance and voltage. that's why you can't electrocute yourself by putting your fingers on a 9v battery even though it's well over 200mA.
Really the only thing that could possibly kill you is the capacitors inside if you open up the power supply. I think those discharge fairly quickly in modern systems but I am not sure.
The outputs of the system are fairly innocuous because they are DC at a low enough voltage (max of 12VDC) to not seriously hurt you even if you touch both the positive and the negative of one of the connectors. Now if there was some sort of anomaly and the dc lines were carrying a waveform, then if the wave was a specific frequency to match your body's impedance it could actually affect you. This is kind of akin to a "hollywood" terrorist threat though as it would most likely not happen but if it did it would be tragic.
You've confused energy with potential (voltage). Despite the potential being extremely high, the energy is very low. Otherwise these people would not only be receiving shocks, they'd be burned and/or electrocuted. A capacitor the size of a typical shampoo bottle can definitely hold a lethal amount of energy.
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