Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by californical 1263 days ago
I appreciate the point you’re making, but I’d like a source for

> Thousands of people will get shocked today

Before I come to any conclusions.

According to [0], “There are also at least 30,000 shock incidents per year that are non-fatal” and “ In the United States, there are approximately 1000 deaths per year, as a result of electrical injuries”

So about 1 in 30(ish) if we assume they accounted for nonreporting. If we assume they underreported by 10x, 1/300 is still pretty bad odds

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK448087/

2 comments

It's also fallacious to look at numbers like "1000 / 30000 = 3%" and say that you shouldn't have to worry about getting electrocuted when handling electricity because it's only a 3% chance of dying if you get electrocuted.

That 3% number is causally intertwined with the fact that professionals take safety very seriously, and most non-professionals are afraid of electrical stuff and generally do try to take precautions around it, within the limits of their own knowledge.

That's 30,000 people getting shocked and it being serious, needing to go to the hospital. People doing work around houses get shocked all the time. 120v in typical US house is like mildly annoying. Definitely not trying to hold onto wires with bare hands or anything but getting "bit" while changing light switches or outlets isn't painful enough for many people to worry about finding the breaker box.