why did i not die when i got a massive electric shock from a railway line?

Answer 1

why in gods name were u there in the first place?

Answer 2

Evidently the path that the electricity took from the rail, through your body, and into the earth did not pass through your heart. Had this have happened, you heart would most likely have stopped/gone into ventricular fibrilation (VF), and you would die from lack of oxygenated blood being pumped around the body.
Ironically enough, if your heart enters VF then you need another electric shock through it in order to make it start again. This is what defibrilator do.
Alternatively, you may die another way:
Because muscles are controlled by electrical signals, if you touched the electric rail with, say, your hand, then the flow of electricity through the hand may cause the muscles controlling the fingers to contract, forceing you to "grab" the rail. If this happened and you could not let go, then you can die from the shear amount of electricity literally burning its way through you.

I'm glad to say that as you survived, none of the above happened to you, but just one word of advice, don't play on railway lines; you may not be as lucky next time!

Answer 3

Death from electricity depends on the amount of current,not voltage,that passes through the body. The human body has a fairly high resistance if it is dry and is not directly connected to earth. I can only assume that in your case you did not earth the railway voltage and although you got a severe shock the current was not enough to kill you.The health of an individual and the state of their heart will also have a bearing on their ability to survive.

Answer 4

You certainly got a big shock. The electrical current is very strong and if you got a shock in one arm it would pass your shoulders via your neck at the base of the skull and out through the other arm and it would have given you a shock up the backbone. The worst of the current passed out of your body into the open air and that's why you were not electrocuted...but you were stunned for a few minutes.

Answer 5

Because it may not be strong enough to kill you but to give you a big shock. Most rail lines have saftey measures that it may have cut off the power but it still had enough electricity to cause for a shock.

Answer 6

You can not die from an electric shock. It can put your in a coma and then you die in the coma. The electricity most likely passed through your body and into the ground quickly this does not always happen depending on where you are and where the electricity touches you.

Answer 7

The currents and the voltage distributions were right so you didn't go into fibrilation with your heart. I used to be an electrician in a steel mill and got hit with 440 volts many times... the lower voltage/lower currect was more dangerous

Answer 8

well first thing is why were you so stupid to go near it in the first place, i work on railways and see it happen all the time, i've been told that if you touch a third rail conductor rail, as long as your not touching anything else then nothing will happen but i'm not going to try it, if you touched it whiule touching something else then 99% chance you'd be blown in the air and set on fire

Answer 9

By some stroke of good luck your body was positioned in in a such a way to prevent the current passing through your heart or other vital organ.

Answer 10

Possibility #1: Just lucky.
Possibility #2: All the energy was absorbed by your arachnid power center, giving you the ability to light up a whole city by clutching the output of a big transformer. Far out, Spiderman!
Possibility #3: You did die; welcome to the next dimension.

Answer 11

are you thanking God that your alive?u better be as even if u haven't died u might have got internal electric burns.the human body has a high resistance and though the current was not enough to kill you,you might have internal damage.I'd suggest that you see a medical expert and also don't forget to pray and thank God every day for this miracle.