Electrical Injuries
Electricity is really just organized lightning - George Carlin
image by: SergeyNivens
HWN Recommends
ESFI Urges the Public to Commit to Electrical Safety...
Keep your home safe by learning the basics of how home heating and electrical systems work, and making sure they are properly maintained with these tips from ESFI:
- Always have a qualified, licensed professional install stationary space heating equipment, water heaters or central heating equipment according to the local codes and manufacturer instructions.
- Install carbon monoxide alarms on every level of your home and outside each sleeping area.
- Have your furnace cleaned and inspected annually by a licensed, qualified professional.
- Be sure circuit breakers and fuses are correctly labeled with their amperage and the rooms, circuits, or outlets…
Resources
A Rising Threat to Wildlife: Electrocution
Power lines and electrified fences are killing birds, monkeys, pangolins and even elephants in surprising numbers.
Can We All Benefit From Electric Shocks To Our Brains?
If you follow neuroscience and neuroengineering, it’s hard to ignore the offerings of cutting-edge research seeming to reanimate an antediluvian procedure of pelting the brain with electricity. Today’s more modern and civilized brain zapping is less invasive, more controlled and uses various levels of direct and alternating electrical currents to repair and augment a panoply of different cognitive functions.
Electric Shock Drowning Prevention
How to prevent the tragic mix of dockside swimming and electricity.
Electric Shock Drowning: A Hidden Danger In Fresh Water
Electric Shock Drowning doesn't occur in salt water because salt water is a better conductor of electricity than the human body. Fresh water, however, doesn't conduct electricity, but mammals do. If people or their pets swim in fresh water that is electrified by a boat or other machinery leaking voltage, they can be electrocuted.
ESD Explained
What every boater needs to know about Electric Shock Drowning.
Health Officials Prepare to Track Electric Scooter Injuries
“When technology enters transportation, people forget that it also becomes public health,” she said. “It becomes something where human lives are at stake.”
How Do Tasers Work?
They deliver a lot of volts, but very few amps. Stun guns shoot an electrical pulse that’s designed to go through clothing and skin and give someone a nasty shock. A very high voltage ensures that the pulse will reach its target, and the very low amperage keeps it from doing any lasting damage.
Why Are Power Lines So Deadly?
Most of the hundreds of thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines in this country are made solely of metal—either aluminum or aluminum wrapped around a steel core. Adding a layer of insulation to every line would be pricey and has been deemed unnecessary given how high the lines are off the ground. (Underground lines are insulated, both for the safety of the walkers above and to protect the lines from shovels and the like.) The biggest overhead power lines can carry more than 700,000 volts, but deadly accidents occur with smaller lines that carry just a few hundred volts.
Electric Shock
Low voltage electricity (less than 500 volts) does not normally cause significant injury to humans. Exposure to high voltage electricity (greater than 500 volts) has the potential to result in serious tissue damage. Serious electrical shock injuries usually have an entrance and exit site on the body because the individual becomes part of the electrical circuit.
Electricity: the new medicine
Electricity may not replace conventional drugs, but in the not too distant future, it will surely complement them.
ESFI Urges the Public to Commit to Electrical Safety...
Keep your home safe by learning the basics of how home heating and electrical systems work, and making sure they are properly maintained with these tips...
StatPearls
An individual may experience an electrical injury at home such as shock from a small appliance, extension cord or wall outlet, which is very rarely associated with any significant trauma or complications. Children may experience a low-voltage injury without associated loss of consciousness or arrest by biting or chewing on an electrical cord. Adults may receive similar injuries while working on home or office appliances or circuits. Low-voltage electrical current can result in severe injury, much like high-voltage current, depending on the length of exposure (e.g., if there is prolonged muscle tetany), the size of the individual, and cross-sectional area in contact with the electrical source.
Electric Shock Drowning Prevention Association
The Electric Shock Drowning Prevention Association is a 501(c) nonprofit organization devoted to saving the lives of those who frequent our recreation waters. We invite you to browse our website to learn how to protect your family from the danger of Electric Shock Drowning.
ElectricaInjury.com
With household current, internal thermal injury is rare but does occur. Nerve injury is a common primary response to many, even brief shocks. Let’s not blame the medical community too much. Electrical injury is widely misunderstood but for some very good reasons. The biggest reason is that the field has completely changed since 1990 and most physicians (and most informational sources) have not yet caught up with those changes.
Electrical Safety Foundation International
The Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI) is the premier non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to promoting electrical safety at home and in the workplace.
Chicago Electrical Trauma Rehabilitation Institute
CETRI is a clinical nonprofit research institute focused on improving acute and rehabilitative efforts for survivors of electrical trauma.
ForensicPathologyOnline.com
Electrocution is rare at less than 100 volts, and most deaths occur at more than 200 volts.
Patient
Minor shocks: if the patient is asymptomatic and has a normal ECG, they can safely be discharged with reassurance. Delayed arrhythmias are exceptionally rare and are usually preceded by a pre-existing ECG abnormality. Note that low voltage burns (of the type sustained from domestic electricity) are not associated with systemic complications but the local burn is almost always full thickness. Necrosis may extend within days and early surgical intervention with grafting tends to be favoured by burns specialists.
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