Electrical Related Injuries
Each year, thousands of people across the country receive series electrical burn injuries at home and in the work place. Unfortunately, many electrical accidents result in death.
Tree trimmers and crane operators can come into contact with "hot" wires without notice or time to react. Digging ditches with a pick or shovel or from the seat of a large ditch digger also creates the risk of electrical shock to an individual or operator.
Electrical injuries involve electrons flowing abnormally through the body of a person produce which produce injury and/or death by depolarizing muscles and nerves, by initiating abnormal electrical rhythms in the heart and brain, and by producing electrical burns both by heating and by poration of the cellular membranes.
Current passing through the brain, in both low-voltage and high-voltage circuits, produces unconsciousness instantly and directly due to the depolarization of the brain's neurons. Alternating current (AC) may produce ventricular fibrillation if the path of the current involves a passage such as one through the chest, arm to arm, arm to leg, or head to arm.
Circuits through a person that last for protracted periods (minutes) produce ischemic brain damage if they interfere with respiratory movement. All circuits may produce myonecrosis, myoglobinemia, and myoglobinuria and their attendant complications.
Circuits may produce electrical burns with relatively massive amounts of tissue destruction by heating the tissues due to the physical property of friction from the passage of electrons (joule heating) and by destruction of cell membranes by producing holes in the membranes (poration). In addition, thermal burns resulting from electrical flashes generally are considered electrical injuries, although such injuries may not involve a circuit through a person.
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