Do Volts or Amps Kill You? Voltage, Current and Resistance

There's a saying that "it's not the volts that kills you, it's the amps" and while that's true in a way, you can't have amps without volts and skin resistance plays a big part too. This video explores all this, introducing voltage, current and resistance for those new to these things.

Sources for the table on the effect of current:

See also:

Wimshurst machine - How to make using CDs

How Fast is an Electron and Electricity

Fresnel lens solar cooker using TV lens

A few sources:

Worker deaths by electrocution - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Physical Hazards: Electricity - Safety Institute of Australia Ltd

3D modelling and animation done using Blender 2.63.

Follow behind-the-scenes on:

[tanveersingh]

Neither volts nor amps, it’s the electricity bill that kills me.

[juanzingarello]

The way my electrical engineer of a father explained it to me is this. Current is what directly kills you. The flow of the electrons through your body causes internal burns and your heart to stop. Voltage, which in water models is thought of as “Electrical pressure” is the probability of that current killing you. The higher the voltage, the further it can arc to you through insulators such as air and kill you. This is why, you usually see “Danger High Voltage” signs instead of “Danger High Amperage” signs. Its because higher voltage, you don’t need to touch a hot wire to be electrocuted. If you are in the kilovolt range, just being close enough to a power line or live bus in a sub station and grounded will get you killed.

[dandearman]

Sometimes it's not the volts or the amps that kill you but the jolt you get from a shock that knocks you off of your ladder and sends you smashing into the pavement.

[smokescreen]

- Amps kill but need high voltage to deliver them.

- Anything below 30V is not enough to break human skin's resistance.

- 450-600V skin will break down altogether easily allowing current through.

- If wet skin, body's skin resistance drops from 100, 000 ohms to 1, 000 ohms.

- How long the current flows also has effect. At 50 mA = 2 seconds to let go. 500 mA = 0.2
seconds.

- Static electricity has a few thousand volts, but not enough charge to kill (and even if high current
such as 12 Amps it is only for 1 millionth/micro of a second and far too brief to inflict serious
harm).

[RimstarOrg]

The saying goes "It's not the volts that kills you, it's the amps." My latest video explains how it's not quite so simple. The volts moves the amps while your skin's resistance plays a part too.

[champamampa]

I like to tell voltage is the gun and current is the bullet.

[RomanKuechler]

The question ignores basic physics and Ohm's Law. You might as well ask, does the gun or the bullet kill? The answer is, the bullet (current) doesn't kill without the gun (voltage) - and vica-versa. And the thicker the body armor (resistance), the stronger the gun (voltage) has to be to make the bullet (current) strong enough. High voltages kill because they increase the current. High current is not possible without high voltage for the same resistance. If the current is to be high enough to kill, then the voltage _must_ also be high enough, for a given resistance.
*You can NEVER judge the effect of any of these three components without considering the remaining two components. The effect is inextricably linked.*

[BC-wjfx]

It's like asking "What kills you, the 100 metre fall or the sudden deceleration at the ground?". Well the ground would not have a deadly deceleration if it weren't for the great height of the fall. And the height of the fall wouldn't kill you if it weren't for the ground. Now how would you be best to warn other people as to what is deadly: do you warn them to not fall off high places, or do you warn them to not be suddenly decelerated by the ground? Obviously it's the high voltage that's dangerous because it's the only thing that can drive high enough current.

[tifanibogue]

Out of all the many videos, this one made the most sense to me. I’m 28 years old. When I was 8 in the 2nd grade, my dad was electrocuted on his job. 7200 volts. Burned ALL of his skin completely off. My dad is a dark skinned man, when I saw him for the first time in the hospital, he was PINK from the neck down! I was so young and didn’t understand but as I got older I started asking more questions. 450-600 can break the skin?!? I can only imagine what my dad went through! I thank God he’s still here 20 years later and doesn’t look like what he’s been through! He has life long damage of course but if you didn’t know he was in an electric accident you wouldn’t be able to tell but just looking at his face. !

[googane]

Fuck, I remember when I was 8 or 9 I was holding a lamp post and a metal fence trying to just mess around and then I felt the current passing through my body which I still have no idea how that managed to do so but this video is very accurate, I could not let go of my hands, my chest and the back of my head started to hurt and I couldn't breathe or speak at all. How I did manage to escape was that I slid down unintentionally as I was being electrocuted. I used my entire weight to fall vertically until my hand on the fence hit the floor which it released my hand. A large bump appeared on my left hand and I showed it to my parents, they said stuff like this happen to them all the time and that made me feel like shit... But you never really get to appreciate life until you come close to death.

[jedisenpei]

It is neither the Amps or the Volts that kills you. It is the Watts. I*U=(Q/sec)(J/Q)=J/sec =W . Or the energy if you like E = W*t .

[gabeshaw]

Stupid question. When you get in a car accident, is it the force or the acceleration that kills you? The answer is both, as the two are related and cannot exist without one another

[andycopeland]

I'm an electrician and I hear know-it-alls argue about this question all the time. It's stupid.
"When you fall from the top of a building is it hitting the ground that kills you or is it your body breaking that kills you?"
Just two elements of the same damn thing

[nasen]

Why is this video suddenly getting lots of views after 8 years on Youtube ?

[YoDay]

Watched this video last year, understood little bit.
Watching this year, understood a bit more.
I'll come again next year and hope that I understand everything.
Thanks

[Gizmos_and_stuff]

i touched a bug zapper, those are several hundred to a thousand ish volts. It gave me a little zap
I touched parts of a vacuum tube circuit (couple hundred volts, IDK if it was AC or DC), much less voltage but still enough to have me shaken for a while. Also had sweaty hands
overall i concluded that i should be more careful around live circuitry, very educational

[wickedbird]

😮😮As a child, I grabbed a pole that had electrical going through it. It hurt, I screamed and could not let go. Fortunately my grandfather shut down the power and I survived. I don’t care which it was, I still remember the pain decades later.

[jacko]

In summary: Do volts or amps kill you?
Answer: Yes

[jamierapp]

I'm an industrial electrician at a steel mill. Once we had to run a temporary 480V feed after a big fire. Contractors, ignorant of the danger, moved the power cable & even drove over it with trailers & vac trucks. Danger tape somehow wasn't a meaningful enough warning. We had enough, & put up a sign stating "This 480-Volt cable will kill you, & it will hurt like hell the whole time you are dying." Didnt get moved again.

[Atticus]

When I was a kid my dad had some car starter thing that was in our basement. It said it went up to 800 amps. And I played around with it stupidly and almost killed my self and almost burned down the house. Lucky my parents never found out but I learn a valuable lesson that day.