Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpfcso!hpfcdc!kingdom
From: kingdom@hpfcdc.HP.COM (Mike Kingdom)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: HELP!
Message-ID: <4660003@hpfcdc.HP.COM>
Date: 28 Jan 91 22:23:47 GMT
References: <1991Jan19.052458.7449@wam.umd.edu>
Organization: HP Fort Collins, Co.
Lines: 15

>Seems to me it's the old P=IV that really does the killing...
>
>It also seems to me that the point is to fry the nerves that keep that
>sucker pumping, not unlike putting an 1/8 watt resistor across an
>unregulated 10w power supply...

Boy, talk about drift! Anyway, I'll drift a little too :-)

"Frying nerves" isn't generally the way someone dies when electrocuted.
About 70ma through the nerves of the heart causes them to discharge and
go into refractory period at the wrong (often somewhat random) time.
With all the nerves out of sync like that, the muscle tissues contract at
different times causing fribrilation.

-- Mike