5 – It Only Takes A Little Electricity to Kill You, the Electric Chairs Delivers a Lot
In the modern era, we desperately depend on electricity for multiple facets of our daily life. Whether you want to use the Internet, watch TV, reheat something in a microwave or enjoy a power shower, electricity is your friend. When you think about it for a minute; how chaotic does your life become when you experience a power outage? Despite its many benefits, electricity is potentially lethal, and it doesn’t take much of it to kill.
Our skin acts as natural resistance to electricity because our organs and tissues are a lot more vulnerable. As you probably know, wet skin is up to 100 times more susceptible to electricity than dry skin. This is why inmates have their heads shaved, and a moistened sponge is applied to the tops of their heads. When you receive an electric shock, the current overloads the nervous system and prevents crucial functions such as heartbeat and reflexes. A strong enough electric shock sends the heart into fibrillation, where it flutters instead of beats and is unable to pump blood through the body effectively.
The level at which electricity is dangerous depends on a variety of factors. In some cases, just 50 volts has been enough to cause fibrillation. For the record, some tasers reach 50,000 volts. Volts carry the electric current through the body, and it is measured in amps. According to the Ohio State Physics Department, 0.01 amps, or 10 milliamps, is enough to cause a painful shock, and anything above that amount causes tetanus. A current of just 100 milliamps is enough to kill you.
Moreover, it takes just 7 milliamps to reach your heart for three seconds to kill you. When it comes to the electric chair then, the authorities adopt a ‘more is better’ approach. There is at least one state that requires an initial voltage of 2,450 volts to be used. It lasts for 15 seconds and a total of 6 amps, or 6,000 milliamps, is delivered by the electric chair in total. This process can cause the body to heat up to over 200 degrees Fahrenheit which results in terrible internal organ damage and occasionally, some pretty awful things happen such as melting eyeballs and skin going on fire. The prison officers have to scrape skin off the chair before it can be used again. Even amidst all this horror, there is a handful of non-prison staff who witness it.
