Shock During Rainy Season

Please do not post in capitals. It is considered to be rude.

The current takes all possible alternate paths, and of that one do pass through the body too. Even the miliamperes through this path are enough to give a fatal shock.

Water it in itself does not conduct electricity. It is the dissolve salts and minerals in the water that causes it to conduct. The human bodies 60% water and dense with dissolved salts and mineral. The water your standing will not be so dense with dissolved salts and minerals. As the electricity disperses to ground. It tries to find the shortest distance with the least resistance. Your body offer the least resistance for water on one side of you to the other in the direction of it's dispersal.

Good question! You see when you stand on the water which is alreday 'elctrocuted', you create a parallel resistance path between your two feet. Current division does take place in inverse proportion to the resistance of the two parallel paths. If the so divided current magnitude through your body's resistive path is beyond the perceptible level, you feel the shock.

"...THAT TOO WITH SANDALS OR SHOES."

Do you mean this fellow may be at risk?

I hope it isn't raining!

Case-1:- when we are in contact with stagnated water and our sandals or shoes are negligibly wet (reasons are our precipitation thru skin, atmospheric humidity, capillary action, etc) that we consider them as dry- (1) the electrical resistance of wet human body is about or less than 1000 ohm. (2) "The damage caused by electric shock depends on the current flowing through the body -- 1 mA can be felt; 5 mA is painful. Above 15 mA, a person loses muscle control, and 70 mA can be fatal." ref- Paul W., Neff, Robert F. Merrill Physics, Principles and Problems. McGraw-Hill (3) In general, current that is fatal to humans ranges from 0.06 A to 0.07 A, depending on the person and the type of current and muscle mass. (4) As EE65, rightly stated that further body resistance decreases due to parallel action (5) also note that, if total solids dissolved in water is 0 then electrical conductivity of the water is 0 deciSiemens/mtr. And if it is about 2000mg/ltr then EC becomes 3dSiemens/ltr. In stagnant water this EC will be obviously extremely high. (6) from this we can conclude that, though we considered that we are not wet, due to above stated factor we may at least get feel of shock. Case-2:- if we ensured that, we are totally "isolated" from such contacts with shoes, gloves, etc...then we will not get any shock!!

That is why standing under a tree in a thunderstorm is not a good idea. If lightning strikes the tree then there will be a voltage gradient in the soil surrounding it. If two feet are at different voltages, current flowing through the body may be enough to arrest the heart!

Do turn off Caps Lock. Many readers are case-sensitive.

If lightning strikes the tree then there will be a voltage gradient in the soil surrounding it. If two feet are at different voltages, current flowing through the body may be enough to arrest the heart! = 2OTs

The current takes all possible alternate paths, and of that one do pass through the body too. Even the miliamperes through this path are enough to give a fatal shock. = 1OT

Current division does take place in inverse proportion to the resistance of the two parallel paths. If the so divided current magnitude through your body's resistive path is beyond the perceptible level, you feel the shock = 1GA

(The 2GA also on the same subject, with a few additional mathematics)

How OTs are given on this forum? Anyone?

The GAs never bother since the time I had been anonymous but the OTs always puts the person (or the OP) off the scent. The members should be more careful about putting OTs.