Power Lines

[Kamakazie Sith]

Does anybody know what factors can save someone who gets electrocuted by 10,000 volts from a power line?

I need to know because someone is attributing the survival to god, and I know it's bullshit, but I just don't know how it's bullshit.

The person who was shocked was a power company employee who grabbed the wire when he thought he heard that it was shut off. Now, it seems he had a testing device that shows 10,000 volts went through his body. Not only did this person survive, but he only had a few burns, and some sore shoulders.

I appreciate any information...

[Surlethe]

Ask him why it's impossible he survived any other way. If he wants to attribute it to God, then it's his business to show how God did it, and why alternatives are excluded.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Ask him why it's impossible he survived any other way. If he wants to attribute it to God, then it's his business to show how God did it, and why alternatives are excluded.

I agree, but I'd like to shove a scientific explanation down his throat.

Basically, he's using an ontological argument, and that's already been pointed out to him. This is just the final nail in the coffin.

I think what probably happened was the man was blown free before any severe damage could be done.

[Ar-Adunakhor]

He was probably wearing protective gear as per regulations, and if he gripped it with his right hand (highly likely) it could have gone to ground through parts of his body that don't possess any super-vital organs.

What type of line was he working on? House lines are much much lower and high-voltage lines are... way way above that.

[ThatGuyFromThatPlace]

voltage doesn't kill you anyway, its the Amperage, thats more important to know in determining how he survived than the voltage.

[Kuroneko]

The figure of 10KV is certainly not an indicator of electrical power; nor lethality, considering one can get that amount from a wool sweater. More to the point, unless he grabbed the wire with both hands simultaneously, most of the current would still go through the wire, some through his hand, and then only a comparatively small amount through his body into the ground, since that is the most likely ranking of resistances from greatest to least. The situation would have been much more dangerous if the used his hand to close an otherwise open circuit (and even more so if he did it with both hands), since then then there would have been no alternative path of lower resistance.

[aerius]

Smart ass answer: Nothing. By definition if he got electrocuted he's dead.

Serious answer. Depends on how he grabbed the line and the path the current took through his body. If the current goes from his hand, up his arm, and out his shoulder there's a good chance he'll live. If the current goes in one arm, across his chest & heart and out the other arm, chances are he's dead. The key is to keep the current low and away from the heart, and if that's done there's a good chance he'll live.

For instance an important rule of working with high voltage stuff such as vacuum tubes and TVs is to keep one hand behind your back when testing live circuits. This helps prevent the current from going across your heart and killing you, chances are the current will go in your arm and out your leg without crossing the heart, you'll get a nasty shock but you'll live.

[Wyrm]

Does anybody know what factors can save someone who gets electrocuted by 10,000 volts from a power line?

I need to know because someone is attributing the survival to god, and I know it's bullshit, but I just don't know how it's bullshit.

The person who was shocked was a power company employee who grabbed the wire when he thought he heard that it was shut off. Now, it seems he had a testing device that shows 10,000 volts went through his body. Not only did this person survive, but he only had a few burns, and some sore shoulders.

I appreciate any information...

High voltage power lines are stepped up to ridiculously high voltage to reduce transmission losses due to current being shoved through that wire. Current across a resistance R in question is proportional to R = V/I (Ohm's Law).

If your not wet, the human body's resistance to current is rather high (~1-2 MΩ), and according to Ohm's law, the current has to be low. If he's wearing the required safety equipment, such as insulated boots, resistance will be higher, and current (and therefore, dissipated energy through him) is lower.

At a voltage of 100,000 V, the current is <100 mA if he's barefoot. This is barely enough to kill a man through heart fibrilation. If he's wearing the requisite safety gear, the current through him would be lower, perhaps by several orders, and effect on him would be less. But even here, as long as you don't hit the heart, you (or your friend) won't be in much danger.

[drachefly]

Not much, but don't try this at home, kids.

[Pezzoni]

My dad, when he was a young kid came into contact with an overhead power line (the mast of the sailing boat he was helping to push hit it; he was holding a shroud in his right hand). He now has burn scars across the palm of his right hand, and on his toes, but survived with seemingly no other ill-effects. This was obviously without any safety equipment at all, as it was entirely unexpected.

Whilst that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to go around touching power lines, it does go a tiny way towards suggesting that your colleague's survival isn't as miraculous as he thinks.

[Darth Wong]

He's so full of shit. There are people who have survived being electrocuted by 250 kV lines; I should know because I spent four months working in the health and safety department of Ontario Hydro at Pickering when I was a student, and my office partner was studying the correlation of voltage to fatality (he found that 500 kV lines were slightly more dangerous than 250 kV lines, althought he obvious smart-ass remark is that both of them are way too fucking dangerous).

In any case, it's the amps that kill you, not the voltage. In fact, voltage does not "go through your body" at all. Voltage is merely a driving potential. If you use the garden-hose analogy, voltage is like pressure, amperage is like water, and resistance is like a variable-flow valve. Nobody in his right would say that water pressure flows through a hose; he would say that water flows through a hose. Going back to electricity, if your feet are properly insulated, you can easily touch a 10 kV source and survive. I should know because I've done it, and so have countless schoolchildren. There's a demonstration at the Ontario Science Centre where you touch a Van Der Graaff generator and your hair stands on end from the static electricity.

This guy is just a moron. For that matter, anybody who claims to work for a power company and thinks that "volts went through his body" is a fucking idiot who doesn't know his own job and should be fired.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Thank you, everyone. All the information provided here has been very useful, and his argument is falling apart around him. Not that he ever had a good argument.