Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!PT.CS.CMU.EDU!SPEECH1.CS.CMU.EDU!phd
From: phd@SPEECH1.CS.CMU.EDU (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: shock box
Message-ID: <1091@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>
Date: 10 Mar 88 17:00:18 GMT
References: <307@trwind.ind.TRW.COM> <4881@videovax.Tek.COM> <1231@uop.edu> <3616@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <2945@zodiac.UUCP>
Sender: netnews@PT.CS.CMU.EDU
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 34
Keywords: Some real data...

In article <2945@zodiac.UUCP> jshelton@ads.com (John L. Shelton) gives some
overly optimistic values...

From "The Current that Kills" in October '87 IEEE Potentials

1 - 3 mA	Mild Sensation
3 - ~10 mA	Painful Sensation
~10 - 30 mA	Cannot let go. Current may increase to fatal level.
30 - ~75 mA	Breathing stops, often fatal.
~75 - ~250 mA	Heart fibrillation in 1.4 seconds, usually fatal.
~250 mA - 4 A	Heart stops during shock, may restart if current removed
		before death occurs.
4 - 10A		Severe burns, not fatal unless vital organs burned.

This table is a rough guide, and I only post it as a warning to people
not to mess around with this stuff unless they really know what they
are doing.

Some more stuff from the article:

Women seem to have even less tolerance than men; on average, 2/3 the voltage
will cause problems.

Let go currents for women can be as small as 6mA. Thus, ground fault
interupters are usually set around 5mA.

Just wanted to clear the air a bit on this one...

Paul H. Dietz                                        ____          ____
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering        / oo \        <_<\\\
Carnegie Mellon University                        /|  \/  |\        \\ \\
--------------------------------------------     | | (  ) | |       | ||\\
"If God had meant for penguins to fly,             -->--<--        / / |\\\  /
he would have given them wings."            _________^__^_________/ / / \\\\-