Pacemaker Question
- Thread starter jimevert
- Start date
nattybatty55
Nadalaholic
Now im not sure and this is simply a guess but depending on the kind of shock or how it was given would depend on the mark. I think you would get a mark where the electricity entered and then left the body to reach the ground. I suppose it may also depend on the pace maker as I believe there are more than one type right?
Actually, I'm writing a murder mystery and I want to make sure what I write is feasible.
This is the situation: An electric charge is sent through an old-style telephone - the one talking on it is the guy with a pacemaker. The charge is a full 110 volts, so, forensically speaking, if this was enough to be transfered through the earpiece and into the victim, would it kill him? And if it did, besides an obvious (?) bleeding from the ear, would the pacemaker also be fried in the process? If it were, would an ME be able to see that on the body in the form of bruising around the pacemaker, or something like that?
This is the situation: An electric charge is sent through an old-style telephone - the one talking on it is the guy with a pacemaker. The charge is a full 110 volts, so, forensically speaking, if this was enough to be transfered through the earpiece and into the victim, would it kill him? And if it did, besides an obvious (?) bleeding from the ear, would the pacemaker also be fried in the process? If it were, would an ME be able to see that on the body in the form of bruising around the pacemaker, or something like that?
Watch the episode of csi called 'feeling the heat' season 4 episode 5 i think. It has a man in it who is electricuted through a phone, well, they find out the phone is the output rather than the input but it has a lot of relevant science to your question in there.
Generally without the rare complications seen in episode 'overload' season 2 episode 5 where the electricuted man had high doses of iron i think it was in the body which is a conductant. The entery and exit points in the body will be burned.
For the situation you describe i think the electricity would have to pass through the heart, which doesn't always happen, life and death can be a matter of mere centermetres. Not too sure about the voltage you put, but a google search should reveal how high a voltage would need to be to die from it.
You might find that a lower voltage would be needed for someone with a pacemaker, or that a lower voltage might not immediantly kill but damage the pacemaker resulting in death a little while later from a malfunction or the pacemaker not working when the heart needed a jolt to get it working again. That would be an interesting death, but would only work if the pacemaker malfunction needed a lower shock than the heart. No expert, but thats my 2 cents.
Almost forgot to add, external pacemakers might be a different situation to internal pacemakers.
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