What's wrong with our body actually when we get ELECTROCUTED (electrical shock)... or STRUCKED by a LIGHTNING?

Question

I remember I got electrocuted once while changing the ligthbulb... it's so much painful that I passed out and fainted for few minutes... when I regained my consciousness, I found my boyfriend sobbing next to me. His sister has given me CPR. I saw him sitting on a stool grabbing onto my hand with both of him, crying...

My boyfriend also got strucked by a lightning once. He was outside reconstructing the famous Benjamin Franklin kite experiment when lightningbolt stroke him! I was so panicked that he vaporized in front of my very own eyes! Fortunately, he was just thrown away (O.M.G!) violently and hanging restlessly in huge tree nearby... weak and paralyzed! Glad that he survives and lives healthily today...

My boyfriend is a physicist. He told me that it's the current that gives us electrocuted sensation. Still, I wonder what happen inside our body actually... is there anything related to our nerve cells? What kills some people actually when thet get electrocuted? If current-and not voltage- can kill, what's the current-tolerance for people to survive after getting electrocuted?

Well, please explain to me as plain and as simple as possible...
I'm just an ordinary girl without medical background :( ... please...?

Answer 1

Ok, nice and simple...

Several things happen at once.
- the electricity finds the easiest way possible from the place it got in, to a place to get out and flow away- this is the 'ground'. It might actually be the ground, or it might be something conductive we are touching.

- When you got zapped, you were probably either touching something the electricity could exit through, on a metal chair or ladder, or something. The lightening went right through your bf and went in the ground.

- The electricity leaves burns along the pathway. We see this most on our skin, but in our cells, it can boil the water, rupture the cells, etc., causing pain and injury.

- The electicity messes up our bodies natural electrical workings- it can stop the heart, or throw the heart's electrical system into a frenzy; it can jangle the nerves so hard that reflexes force our body to move violently; it can also mess up the chemistry in the cells.



Now- this is a good place for a commercial. You and those you love really should take some CRP and first-aid classes. This kind of thing happens to people, and some basic education can help you be more prepared or the next time.

The Red Cross offers great classes you can check out if you are interested.

Answer 2

Others have touch on the way muscles and nerves work on electricity. You asked how people die from electrocution. The most common way is very instantaneous. The electricity takes a path through your heart and interrupts its normal electrical conduction system. (that system works on millivolts of electricity where normal power is 120 volts, and lighting is around 60,000 to 100,000 volts.) If the electricity is powerful enough or crosses the heart at just the right time, it can cause the electrical system in your heart to fail and enter a rhythm called ventricular fibrillation (often called V-Fib). This cardiac rhythm is simply the ventricles of the heart quivering without any organized rhythm. It is a rhythm that is inconsistent with life. Other times, too much electricity will burn the heart's delicate cells until they can no longer perform their job.

Answer 3

Sometimes the heat alone will cook the area the electricity passed through. Electricity always takes th most direct path to the ground, so it enters your head if yiu are standing and exits your feet, leaving burned marks on both ends, and burning and destroying the brain and other tissues it passes through.
However, what probably happened to you, is the shock you got wasn't strong enough to burn you or your insides but it was strong enough to knock your hearts natural pacemakers out of wack. They are called the SA node and the AV node and they work like this... Your brain sends nerve impulses to the SA and AV nodes telling them to release electric impulses to the chambers of the heart at just the precise time causing the heart to contract and relax in an organized regular rythem causing blood to be pumped throughout your body. When the SA & AV nodes get an electric shock from the outside, esp. when the shock is much stronger than normal, it can knock them off line and cause your heart to stop or to begin fibrilatting and not pumping blood like it should. This condition is fatal if intervention is not started immediately. (CPR, Meds, AED, etc.)
Bottom line, your boyfriends sister saved your life.

Answer 4

Basic science tells us the body is made up of molecules ( proteins), ions (electrolytes) arranged into cells, organs and tissues. Most of the substances above are charged, that is they have within them, minute positive and negative charges (example- serum albumin)
When you are electrocuted (depending on the type of electrical current) your body 's molecules are forced to move along this electrical gradient and disoriented from their natural/biological patterns. (consider changes as in an egg turning solid after boiling due to energy-heat). Electricity is a form of energy too!
Further, the organs that depend on electrical impulses to function are the most affected- example heart and nerves. These may be excited enough to cause failure due to cell damage.
Sometimes the electricity can dislodge cells en-mass or denature (deform) the proteins so much that they cannot regain their original structures and stability. In large tissues like the muscle, such loses cause leakage of cell proteins into the blood and eventually into the kidneys which can be blocked resulting in kidney failure.
Paralysis, blindness may result.

CPR helped you because your heart had not been too damaged. If it were, too bad. Your brain allowed you to remember those around you, so your nerves were not too destroyed.

It is important after severe shock to get you heart (ECG), kidneys (urinalysis), and vision checked.
Otherwise minor electric shocks serve as a an exciting lesson not to ever be careless around electricity.
This is as simple as I can express it.

Answer 5

Wow.. you seem to have a lot of luck. The electricity damages nerves and also causes all of your muscles to contract temporarily lose control (even your heart) it can also kick start a stopped heart. After prolonged electrocution, body tissue begins to deteriorate and carbonize. It's that deteroration or just the stopping of the heart that kills.

Answer 6

when electricity passes through our body the medium is water and cells. according to Ohm's law V= R*I due to high resistance of our cells they eventually heat up causing the water to evaporate and killing the cells instantly.
This process happens everywhere inside our body as long as current passes through us.
so our body is like inside a microwave oven.
This intense heat if is too much for our heart then it cannot hold on though our brain gets supercharged sometimes fixing paralysed body parts.

Answer 7

u all need to stay away from electricity.