Why people can’t move or react when they get electricuted or when they touch electricity?
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While both alternating current and direct current disrupt your control, it is direct current that causes you to freeze. Alternating current causes you to spasm, at least sometimes causing you to let go of whatever is shocking you.
The reason is that the signal you send to your muscles to contract is electrical. The stronger the signal, the more the muscle contracts.
When a powerful enough electrical current travels down your nerves, whether from your brain or from an outside source, this causes contraction. Relaxation isn’t a signal, precisely. It is simply removing that current.
When that happens from an ongoing current from outside your body, it contracts the muscles. You can’t relax the muscles because all that does is stop your brain from sending current down the nerves. It does nothing to stop the outside current.
Since the muscles that control your grip are stronger closing your hand than opening it, your hand then clamps down on the source of the current. You can’t let go and thus cannot get away from it.
My father worked for Bonneville Power. He told me that when working near high voltage currents he was taught to always brush everything with the back of his hand before touching it. This way, if there was a short and something that shouldn’t be charged was, the spasms would pull his hand away from the object.
Alternating current has a slightly different effect than direct current. The current does cause the muscles to clench, but the current reverses 60 times a second. This tends to cause spasms and cause you to release the object if you are gripping it.
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