I have seen lots of electrocution videos where the victims get “glued” to the very object that killed them, like electricity poles, to the point that they stay in the air and not fall on the ground. How/Why?
In: Physics
Your muscles work with electricity. Your brain sends some through your nerves to command them to contract.
When you grab an electrified object your muscles contract, both the ones that close your hand and the ones that open it, but the closing ones are stronger. Your brain can’t overcome the electricity (it doesn’t even command muscles to relax, kinda) so you can’t release the electrified object.
If someone touches you when you’re being electrocuted, then they could grab you as well. So either they can cut the power or try to use a plank to remove you from the object.
The best you can do is to first touch the fridge/washing machine/etc with the back of your hand. That way, if it happens to be electrified you’ll be kicked (by your own muscles) but unable to grab. And… Have a house GFCI switch like many other countries (cuts power when some of the phase doesn’t return to the street through the neutral cable as it should).
Our muscles work by being stimulated with electrical signals from the brain, so when you get electrocuted all the muscles along the path to ground contract, often violently, so you just naturally grab onto whatever is shocking you. There are exceptions, over a certain voltage/amperage (not sure which) you will be knocked away instead because it’s one sudden, violent contraction rather than just tensing everything up.
Your body cramps up under intense pain and trauma shock. If you stub your toe against door or something, your first reflex would be to tighten every muscle in your body, and only then go “owwwww”…
Electricity is continuous shock and pain, so you’ll stay tense. That’s what makes tasers work, you’re no longer in control of your nervous system.
Now, with really severe electrocution, all sorts of “fun” things start to happen. Your heart can’t pump properly anymore, so you’ll experience cardiac arrest. Your lungs can’t do their work very well, either, so you’ll also suffocate. And the electricity is causing burn damage to your skin and internal organs, and with high-enough voltage, your stomach might turn into electric kettle and boil the contents.
A terrible way to go.
Your brain uses electrical impulses to tell your muscles when to contract. Muscles only pull and relax, they don’t push, so we have opposing muscles for every joint. E.g. bicep and tricep oppose each other trying to bend your elbow.
Forcing a ton of electricity through your body tends to overpower those signals and causes all of your muscles to contract, preventing them from relaxing. Given that our biceps tend to be stronger than our triceps, we usually end up bending our elbows. Similarly, the tendons that tighten our grip tends to be stronger than the tendons that open our grip (who’s ever exercised the reverse grip motion?). This causes our hands to clamp down in a tight grip.
This is part of why electrocution is so damn dangerous. It causes horrible burns and damage, yet at the same time it causes our body to lock up instead of recoil from the pain.
The craziest part is both your open and close muscles are triggered and acting simultaneously
They don’t. Thier muscles contract. If you brush against an electrified object while walking, you’ll go stiff and fall over as all of your muscles contract, but if the electrocution doesn’t kill you or knock you out, you’ll have bodily control again the instant you lose contact with the electrified object.
However, if you reach out and grab an electrified object, your muscles will contract and your grip will be “locked” onto the object. Or if you fall on an electric object you’ll go rigid and can’t move to get off of it.
When you need a muscle to contract your brain sends a small electrical charge which tells the muscle to squeeze. All muscles contract using electrical pulses from your nerves. Your muscles can’t tell the difference between your nervous system’s electricity versus electricity coming from outside your body. So when electricity goes through your body from something like a power line all muscles along the way will contract and squeeze.
If you are gripping the item that’s causing electrocution you are now squeezing it super tight and with all the force your muscles can muster. Even if you weren’t holding the object the electricity is still going to force your muscles to be in a constant state of squeeze and that means you have no control over those muscles anymore. Many types of movement require at least one muscles to tense while another needs to relax, but having them all tense makes your ability to walk or do most actions impossible.
This is why people being electrocuted tend to have death grips and go stiff. The person can feel everything but they just have no control of their muscles because the electricity is completely overriding their muscles
A/C= “gripping voltage”
Terrifying: simply cannot let go.
Got stuck between a tv and a floor lamp once as a child. Mom saw it and unplugged the lamp.
As someone who has had the experience. 360V @60A in my right arm and out my left. I tried to let go. I couldn’t. My hands and arms were beyond my control. The electricity overrided my brain. I don’t know how long I was held there. I remember thinking “well this is it. I won’t see my kids grow up, my wife will be husband less, and they are just going to find me laying behind this damn heat pump. Then it stopped. I could move again. The taste of copper leaving my mouth. It was most likely just there for a second or two. But when you loose all control over all the mussels in your body. You can’t let go. Electricity can kill you and let me tell you. It will hurt the entire time it is happening.
Your brain uses electrical signals to tell your body how to move and what muscles to contract.
If you grab a live wire, all that electricity sends a signal that looks just like “grab tight” to your arm.
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