If someone urinates on something electrified, like a subway 3rd rail, is there any possibilty of electrocution

Question

Could the electricity go up the stream and shock the individual? Electro shock therepee?

Answer 1

Yes. He'd probably die, urine is chock-full of electrolytes.

EDIT: Just read your pun. When he wakes up, tell him "Urine the hospital."

Answer 2

It depends on your aim and your volume.
If you pee on the third rail, nope, you won't get belted. You would have to have a solid and sustained stream with significant force, not likely. But, if you pee on your shoes or so much you're standing in a puddle of liquid full of impurites and 'contact' the third rail, you won't have to worry about paying your credit card bills, you'll be toast.

Electroshock TherePEE? Cute.

PS: Contrary to what you may think or what you've heard here, water does NOT conduct electricity. Pure water is actually an insulator. It's the impuirities suspended in the water that carries the jolt. As you might imagine Urine is chock full of impurities most notably sodium. So if you're thinking of doing some electrical work while standing in a puddle of your own pee, you will deserve the belt you're going to get and will probably not be missed. Duh

Answer 3

Pure water itself is a poor conductor of electricity.
When an electrolyte is added like salt, acid or a base
the water is ionized and will now conduct electricity.

Human urine has salt in it so it conducts electricity well.

A friend of mine grew up on a farm in Kansas and when he was teenager he urinated on an electric fence used to keep hogs in the pen.

The way he tells it he set an Olympic jump record for jumping straight up from a standing start!

Must have tickled his manhood something fierce.

He said there was nothing funny about it at the time.

Shock therepee is right.

P.S.
25 answers in 18 minutes must be a record of some sort.

Answer 4

When I was about 15, we had a dog -- a cocker spaniel -- and an extension cord from one room to the other. Well, one night the dog peed onto the extension cord and created a short. I was asleep at the time but I woke up when there were these flashes like lightening and loud sounds (not as loud as thunder) and this horrible smell of something burning(not sure what -- piss and rubber and wood).
I got up to investigate and found the extension cord was burned right in two. I went down into the basement to check the fuses. They were okay.
When I came out, I saw my dad in the living room watching TV. I told him what had happened.
He said that a few minutes previously, the dog (Bouncer) had come out of the hallway and was just like shaking, trembling.
Yeah, I bet he was after that experience.

Answer 5

Here's a funny story. Lived in a single-wide trailer after selling the house and before moving onto a boat in the marina. The TV set on the floor was old and apparently not grounded. A friend came over and brought his freaking annoying standard poodle. The is dog (male) raised his leg to the TV and peed. He was standing on the metal furnace vent.

With a yelp he jumped about four feet in the air and about eight feet sideways into the wall. Smoke actually rose from his crotch. he came to and was none the worse for wear after getting over the shakes.

We about died laughing. My friend says that to this day the dog has never again peed in someone's home.

Answer 6

They tested this on Mythbusters. Under any remotely normal circumstances, no this will not happen. The stream breaks up into drops very shortly after leaving the body, so there is no constant path for electricity to travel back up to the person.

Answer 7

Yes, you could get shocked. But it is unlikely, as the urine stream is not continuous, but breaks apart as it falls.

But several of the answers you got are totally wrong.

WATER does NOT conduct electriity very well at all. Only when salts are dissolved in the water does it conduct well. Urine is full of salts, so it conducts. Pure distilled water would not.

Answer 8

Don't know much about subway 3rd rails but I do know that I have seen my brothers get shocked from pissing on a hotwire fence in our yard when I was a younger and it shocked them...Kind of funny actually!

Answer 9

Yes. If you stuck your dick into an electified puddle, you'd be shocked, right? The urine connecting your dick to the 3rd rail would do the same thing. FYI - some kid was just injured badly - lost his dick, I think - after peeing on a friend's still-running PS2. Idiot.

Answer 10

unless they are inches away ferom the rail becausee standing, by the time the urine hits the rail, it's borken up and cannot create a steady stream of electricity to the body.

Answer 11

No,

This is impossible, you would need a constant stream to make the contact and your urine is never constant.

This myth was busted on the T.V. show Myth Busters.
Unless you were right on top of it like inches.