This video gives you a very good explanation of what happens when a person gets electrocuted. It won’t allow you to see your skeleton through your skin like it does on cartoons, that would be an x-ray, and if you were exposed to those for too long your body would be in far worse shape than if you just got zapped. Also, an electric shock won’t make sparks shoot out of anywhere on your body, normally, since that much electricity would be enough to stop the heart and flash fry a person inside and out, supposedly. No, what an electric shock does is introduce an added current into the body that is far stronger than anything the body is ordinarily used to.
The human body deals in its own type of electricity since the firing of neurons in the brain is an electric process and allows us and every other creature on this planet to move, breathe, think, and survive in our various ways. But the problem with introducing another electric shock to the body is that the body is not typically prepared for it since it isn’t a common occurrence and therefore can’t be adequately managed. What happens in this case is that muscles contract, seize up, and the body kind of shuts down since the invasive current is simply too much to handle. This is why you will see someone stiffen if they’re hit with a stun gun or a taser.
How forceful the current will be depends on the voltage. A person’s resistance to the current has to do with the level of the voltage and how much of a barrier there is between them and the electric current. Human skin is thick enough and dense enough to withstand a fair amount of current, meaning that we could possibly touch a bare wire if the voltage is low enough. You might get a mild tingle or some prickling along your skin as the current runs along your body, but with low voltage there shouldn’t be much more than that. It’s best to not tempt fate however and go around grabbing bare wires since there’s not a lot of ways to know just how powerful a current is until it’s too late.
Unlike a great many cartoons and movies an electric shock won’t manifest with any noise or visible cues. Should a person be shocked hard enough to suffer any damage there will be damage but there will also be an instant reaction. The body seizes up immediately when an electric shock is introduced, there won’t be any opportunity to dance around or squirm, the body will just drop. Depending on the voltage a person might be able to squirm about, or they won’t move at all. If the voltage is too high it has the potential to stop a human being’s heart.
So when you watch a movie or a cartoon and take note of someone being electrocuted take into account that theater and animation play to the camera a lot. Don’t think that you’ll be able to grab a live wire and then shake it off.
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