Less than 100 mA through the heart is enough to stop it.  Dry skin has a
resistance of several hundred K ohms, so you will need kilovolts to create
that much current.  Wet skin, however, has a much lower resistance, so
voltages in the hundreds can do the job.

Tasers and other personnel-control shocking devices are designed to be
current limited to make them non-lethal.

Whether you get a shock from 1 wire depends on whether the circuit has a
current path through earth ground.  A hand-held shock device, for example,
has no ground connection, so 2 electrodes are necessary.  An electric fence,
on the other hand, uses an earth ground, so you can get a shock by touching
only 1 wire.

Regards,
Doug


Tal Bejerano - AMC at kooter@ZAHAV.NET.IL wrote on 5/24/02 6:01 PM:

> Hi
>
> the *question* is in subject of this email.
> are all those HV shockers can kill?
> what is the maximum voltage that cant harm?
> can it give an electric shock only from one ("hot") wire or must have both
> HV ends? "hot" and "ground".
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Tal Bejerano
> AMC - ISRAEL

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