Shocked by Nissan Leaf

[MikeD]

XeonPony: I've never seen someone get shocked purely by 12v DC (or less), as for example by completing the circuit of a 12v car battery by the fingers of one hand across its terminals. Are you sure there wasn't some induced higher (AC) voltage involved?

 

[XeonPony]

it was a battery, no induced voltages, like I say too many shocks in the hands when I was working with 44kv circuits and such building a co2 laser and such, now I can get enough from a 12v to notice it enough to be pain full.

And 12v is more then lethal, hell a 9v will kill you if you had both hands cut and made a circuit!, but the skin brings the amps down to nothing, but to percieve the flow of current you needn't much.

grab the same 12v when wet and you'll notice it pretty damned good, when working on my truck if I brush against the possitive it hurts, not crimplingly so but enough I promptly disengage fromt he possitive terminal.

 

[Flashman]

And 12v is more then lethal, hell a 9v will kill you if you had both hands cut and made a circuit!

I basically have to disagree.
Touchy subject and not trying to start a thread response that can spawn mounds of debate but...
12v and 9v are not going to kill anyone from electrical potential alone... maybe a burn or fallout from a high current short.
Generally, 30v is the minimum voltage required and regarded to draw enough current in most favorable conditions to cause death.
Is it possible to be killed with a lower voltage? yes, but it's beyond rare and requires ridiculous conditions to achieve.
Everyone is different however and so are the many conditions available when shocked... safety should always be your buddy.
But generally, I was always taught (in both Fl and Texas) that 30v and below are the minimum safe working voltages.
Ultimately it's the current your body can draw via 'how conductive you may be' to pull that causes the level of damage or from Fibrillation. (irregular heartbeat from current) so, open wounds and water are of course factor's.
10ma (0.01 amp) is capable of producing painful to severe shock, currents between 100 and 200 mA (0.1 to 0.2 amp) are lethal.
you can actually measure your own resistance and use Ohm's law to calculate if what your working with can kill or injure you.

In my lifetime the 30v rule was usually followed with a generic comment: "30v+ is the point in which you begin to take extra precautions for safety sake as death is possible unless working in a high current environment which safety protocols need be enabled regardless of voltage potential.
A flying glob of molten metal from a 500A @ 1vdc copper bar short just might kill you too.
I remember from both College and Vocational courses (and as a certified Electrician in Texas) followed the 30v rule.
just my experience.

 

[LeftieBiker]

A 9 volt battery placed on the tongue will give you a burn quickly, but I too doubt that 12 volts will do more than make you tingle, unless you are, say, holding a wire that shorts and gets white hot. It's more the amperage of a car battery than the voltage that does harm. When I was in high school I made a mini arc welder using a 12 volt car battery and a pencil "lead". The arc was tiny, but pretty damned hot.

 

[WetEV]

I too doubt that 12 volts will do more than make you tingle

12VDC might kill you, but it is very unlikely. The current threshold of possible death is about 10 mA (AC), and the body's resistance below the skin, or if the skin is soaked in salt water, is about 300 ohms, somewhat less with AC. So in absolutely absurd case, might be possible to die with 3V AC or even a bit less. So says the NIH, check out table 4.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763825/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And if you want the test results on volunteers:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPAS.1964.4766095" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(No volunteers were killed in the production of this report.)

Medical devices companies worry about even much lower voltages, if applied near the heart, could cause death. No examples of deaths are known.

While 10mA might kill, 100mA is much more likely to be fatal, and with low skin resistance, that leads to the 30V or higher rule that is often seen. Also, DC currents need to be about 4 times larger to kill than AC currents. So 12V DC is just at the threshold of very unlikely death.

 

[donald]

12v and 9v are not going to kill anyone from electrical potential alone...

I am lead to believe the lowest voltage ever recorded that caused death was a UN Navy technician who fatally handled a 9V battery with a cut to his hand.

I was once building a PSU with a couple of big smoothing caps carrying no more than 18~20V or so. Thinking nothing of safety with this sort of voltage, I unintentionally gripped two solid parts of the circuit that shorted these caps across my hand. Perhaps I was a little sweaty or whathaveyou, but I felt the caps discharge their entire load through me over the course of a few seconds, and the muscles in my arm pulsed as the current drained. I felt quite unwell and my arm muscles ached for a day or so. If I had been completing an earthed circuit to my feet, rather than shorting two points across my hand alone, I suspect the outcome would have been quite different.

 

[Flashman]

UN Navy technician who fatally handled a 9V battery

Do you have a citation? Any proof of this or any other recorded deaths from 9 or 12volts?
I have been unable to find any.
There are plenty of references to this UN story being an urban legend. (if it's the same story)

As I read it, the story goes:
"this sailor wanted to determine his own body's 'internal resistance.' after learning of the dangers in class. So he intentionally pushed the sharpened probe tips through the skin to eliminate the rather high skin resistance and get only the "internal resistance". This, of course, caused his death."
I don't believe it.
Sharpened probe tips from a multimeter? That would not even pass the 9v batt full potential to the lead's.
To me that's hogwash info from the military to scare young sailor's into keeping up with safety protocols.
(which is not a bad idea)
Or is your story different?

 

[donald]

I can only say that other folks have stated that the report on the death exists. I do also find it somewhat difficult to believe, however if the victim had any susceptibilities then it wouldn't take much to depolarise the heart muscles mid-heartbeat. If you can disrupt enough %age of the heart cells, then the heart may well go into VF.

The point being that it doesn't take much voltage to feel it. I routinely get a 'tingle' from handling active satellite antenna cables when the box is still on and sending out the 18~22V carrier signal to the LNB/motor.