Free cardioversion

With the way insurance and medical costs have been going this may be a solution.

Obviously NOT medical advice.

A quick shock from a Taser may have zapped a man's fluttering heart back into a healthy rhythm, doctors reported on Tuesday.

[www.nbcnews.com]

There are a few other stories like that out there. I have a friend with afib who experienced it himself. He was walking into a hospital for a scheduled cardioversion, and when the automatic door didn't open, he reached out to push it open and received a shock when he touched the door. His afib stopped right at that moment, so he just turned around and drove back home.

Here, mains are 240V 50Hz.
I wouldn't want having a try while in afib. I've already had unvolontarily, while in NSR, and it was far from funny.

Quote
Carey
There are a few other stories like that out there. I have a friend with afib who experienced it himself. He was walking into a hospital for a scheduled cardioversion, and when the automatic door didn't open, he reached out to push it open and received a shock when he touched the door. His afib stopped right at that moment, so he just turned around and drove back home.

Great story. The worst part of the ER is dealing with insurance, the wait, chest X-ray ( I have had 4 dozen maybe) and telling the doctor you want to be ecv. Touching the door helped your friend. It would probably shock me into a heart attack. But that’s me…

Wonder if a small jolt of static electricity from a rug would do the trick.

Quote
Mark
Wonder if a small jolt of static electricity from a rug would do the trick.

:-) Static cling from clothes in the dryer? Less wear and tear on your rug and shoe soles.

Quote
Pompon
Here, mains are 240V 50Hz.
I wouldn't want having a try while in afib. I've already had unvolontarily, while in NSR, and it was far from funny.

Mains are 120V in North America, and I've taken more than one jolt from that, including a prolonged one when I was about 12 years old. Definitely wouldn't want to sample 240V. Nope, no thanks. I've always wondered why Europe uses such high voltage.

Friend of mine says you're now safe to stick a knife into a live toaster.

The 2 shocks I received as a child have me convinced not worth confirming that he's 100% wrong.

I've had a shock from changing fuses in an old house I had with knob and tube wiring.

It's been a few years but I've had to change out AC capacitors and these can give a lethal shock if you don't ground them out first.

I wonder if there might be any connection between having been struck by lightning or having had a significant electrical shock, and later developing Afib? Following a friend who was directly struck by lightning, I learned that the damage is not transient. I wonder how many of us have had such electrical shocks? I’ve been struck by lightning, but not directly

Even a significant shock is world's apart from a lightning strike. Unless you're an electrician working on industrial systems or a power company lineman, the highest voltage and amperage you'll probably ever be exposed to is 240V at 20A, but a lightning strike is on the order of 300,000,000V at 30,000A. So no surprise that lightning can kill and cause permanent injury. That kind of power can literally explode the trunks of huge trees and it will do the same to your body. I once saw a guy get big holes blasted in both of his heels when he was struck by lightning... in his basement... in February... when it was below freezing outdoors. The amusing aspect of that event was that it happened while his wife and kids were at church. He had declined to go that day.

Anyway, I rather doubt that household current could do anything to cause afib later in life.

Quote
Carey
Anyway, I rather doubt that household current could do anything to cause afib later in life.

My indirect lighting strike (I had my hands in a water-filled sink when lightning hit the ground right outside) was strong enough to throw me across the room and stun me—always wondered…

Yeah, 300 million volts will do things like that, but household voltages won't. I can't say what sort of damage an indirect lightning strike might cause, but it seems unlikely the effects would be hidden for years. I would expect immediate effects.

Quote
Carey

Here, mains are 240V 50Hz.
I wouldn't want having a try while in afib. I've already had unvolontarily, while in NSR, and it was far from funny.

Mains are 120V in North America, and I've taken more than one jolt from that, including a prolonged one when I was about 12 years old. Definitely wouldn't want to sample 240V. Nope, no thanks. I've always wondered why Europe uses such high voltage.

Thinner copper wires used for the same current?

Quote
Joe


Here, mains are 240V 50Hz.
I wouldn't want having a try while in afib. I've already had unvolontarily, while in NSR, and it was far from funny.

Mains are 120V in North America, and I've taken more than one jolt from that, including a prolonged one when I was about 12 years old. Definitely wouldn't want to sample 240V. Nope, no thanks. I've always wondered why Europe uses such high voltage.

Thinner copper wires used for the same current?

And also, very important, the tea kettle boils much faster 😁

There's far more to it than 120v vs 240v. Its really the current, (amps), that flows through you for how long that does the damage. The volts push the amps around but if there's no place for the amps to flow into, (ground), they are not deadly regardelss of the voltage, to the first approximation.

For example, a defibtillator uses volages between 200v and 1000v. You can get perhaps a 10,000v shock from touching your car door on a dry day and you shrug it off. You can always see birds sitting on high voltage unshielded power lines very happily but you never see one with one foot on one line and the other on another, which completes a circuit. So does being in wet clothing using an appliance connected to an outlet without a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter, (GFCI).

Here's more on the subject in understandable words. Particularly read the part that talks about how current affects muscles: [www.abc.net.au]