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> With AC having your heart beat 50 times a second can also cause you to die hours or even days after receiving a shock Can you point to any source for this? I

> With AC having your heart beat 50 times a second can also cause you to die hours or even days after receiving a shock Can you point to any source for this? I have not been able to find any report of someone suddenly dying from cardiac problems days after an electric shock. It sounds kinda plausible, but I wonder if it is an urban legend. People lose limbs or die from severe electric burns, and people can die from cardiac arrest immediately after being shocked, but are there really cases where people have cardiac arrest days after an electric shock?

Spooky23 4y ago
Absolutely. Shocks can cause arrhythmias that are fatal hours or days later.
- newaccount74 4y ago
  I've read a lot of assertions that this is true, but I'm looking for reports of this actually occurring. Either case studies from medical journals, or even newspaper articles.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    Maybe start here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658458/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658458/
    - newaccount74 4y ago
      Thank you.
leaving 4y ago
50 times a second is hyperbole. Your heart cannot beat that fast because there is a refractory period between one contraction and the next. Before that could actually take place your heart would go into ventricular fibrillation, a disorganized electrical depolarization of heart muscle where many small electrical impulses cause chaotic and ineffective contractions of correspondingly tiny and disparate parts of the heart muscle. I've heard this idea before, that you can die hours or days after an electric shock without realizing anything is wrong, but I think it is very rare. An electrical injury can certainly trigger an abnormal heart rhythm, but you would probably notice most of those and, hopefully, go get a cardiogram. If you felt normal, but had a serious electrical injury to the heart that would later lead to fibrillation, one would have to postulate some sort of abnormal re-entrant (sort-of circular) depolarization current in the heart muscle that was very regular, say 60 beats per minute, but that was prone to deteriorate into fibrillation over time. That is what I recall about the matter, off the top of my head.
atoav 4y ago
Don't take it lierally, your heart is not beating that fast of course, it just gets a trigger to do so at 50Hz. This is what we learned when going through the German TREI training which includes learning about all product and safety norms. Your heart is triggered by weak electrical impulses and what we learned is that these impulses are surprisingly resistant against outside interference, but there is a threshold at which this is not the case anymore. It certainly won't beat 50 times a second (or 60 times for the 60 Hz people), but it will get a signal to do so 50 times a second. What we learned further was that electrical incidents have high variability, some people can die by just touching the wrong wire, some survive lightning strikes twice. A true gamble. I cannot point you at more resources here, all my resources we had are A) German and B) fall under stupid copy right regulations which I think are a crime when we are talking about any kind of norm. "Hey these are the rules you have to adhere to! Just keep in mind to pay us a few grand a year to get the up to date version"

Spooky23 4y ago

Absolutely. Shocks can cause arrhythmias that are fatal hours or days later.

newaccount74 4y ago
I've read a lot of assertions that this is true, but I'm looking for reports of this actually occurring. Either case studies from medical journals, or even newspaper articles.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Maybe start here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658458/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658458/
  - newaccount74 4y ago
    Thank you.

leaving 4y ago

50 times a second is hyperbole. Your heart cannot beat that fast because there is a refractory period between one contraction and the next. Before that could actually take place your heart would go into ventricular fibrillation, a disorganized electrical depolarization of heart muscle where many small electrical impulses cause chaotic and ineffective contractions of correspondingly tiny and disparate parts of the heart muscle. I've heard this idea before, that you can die hours or days after an electric shock without realizing anything is wrong, but I think it is very rare. An electrical injury can certainly trigger an abnormal heart rhythm, but you would probably notice most of those and, hopefully, go get a cardiogram. If you felt normal, but had a serious electrical injury to the heart that would later lead to fibrillation, one would have to postulate some sort of abnormal re-entrant (sort-of circular) depolarization current in the heart muscle that was very regular, say 60 beats per minute, but that was prone to deteriorate into fibrillation over time. That is what I recall about the matter, off the top of my head.

atoav 4y ago

Don't take it lierally, your heart is not beating that fast of course, it just gets a trigger to do so at 50Hz. This is what we learned when going through the German TREI training which includes learning about all product and safety norms. Your heart is triggered by weak electrical impulses and what we learned is that these impulses are surprisingly resistant against outside interference, but there is a threshold at which this is not the case anymore. It certainly won't beat 50 times a second (or 60 times for the 60 Hz people), but it will get a signal to do so 50 times a second. What we learned further was that electrical incidents have high variability, some people can die by just touching the wrong wire, some survive lightning strikes twice. A true gamble. I cannot point you at more resources here, all my resources we had are A) German and B) fall under stupid copy right regulations which I think are a crime when we are talking about any kind of norm. "Hey these are the rules you have to adhere to! Just keep in mind to pay us a few grand a year to get the up to date version"