If I touch an electricity source (let’s say a phase wire) with my index finger, and another very conductive material with my little finger, will the current go only through my hand?

Question

Or will it nevertheless go through my body and wreak havoc like it normally would?

I’m not actually planning on conducting (pun intended) this experiment, just wondering whether the electricity could be “guided” through the body in any predictable way.

In: 49

Answer 1

It is a mix of both.

Depending on like what clothes and shoes you are wearing, it might be like 99% straight through your hand, and 1% through your body. (I made up those numbers, but I think they demonstrate the point.)

My hunch is that because your hand span is so much shorter, and you are probably wearing shoes, that the vast majortiy of the energy dissipates through your hand and you’ll probably not suffer ‘havoc’ to your internal organs. But I wouldn’t take that as a guarantee.

Especially since your heart is a bit vulnerable, so even a small current through the heart can be a big problem, so the difference between survival and death might be pretty delicate. (Like, perhaps, you might die if you are standing barefoot in a wet pudddle, and easily survive if you have rubber-soled shoes, and anything in between might be varying level of risk.)