What happens if you urinate on a high-voltage electric fence?

There has been a report of a man dying from urination on the subway train, so how is the truth? What happens if you urinate on an electric fence?

In 1968, a man named Joseph Patrick O'Malley was discovered dead on the subway train. Autopsies show the victim's thumb, forefinger and penis tip have severe burns. Through inference, it is thought that this man may have blown water on the subway's railroad track, leading to shock and death. However, scientists have proved that it is impossible to get electrocuted when urinating on a subway track or an electric fence.

Urine is a liquid that is normally sterile by the kidneys and is excreted from the body through the urethra. In urine there are many different substances, mainly uric acid urea, Ammonium salt (making smells), sulfate, chloride, phosphate, magnesium, calcium, sodium, potassium, and water salts. Due to the high content of dissolved metal ions or soluble polymers, urine is a good conductor.

Despite this, the MythBusters science program has conducted many tests and demonstrated that standing on the subway rail (with an electrical current of about 880 volts) cannot make you shocked . The reason for this is that urine flow is not stable . If you go back to a stream of urine and replay it at a slow pace, you will see individual urine droplets instead of a continuous flow of water. That's why it can't conduct electricity and cause you to be shocked.

Urine flow is often intermittent and breaks like this

However after this program of MythBusters was broadcast, there were probably many young people bravely conducting this test. The painful truth is that later feedback on the program revealed that they were shocked, shocked and very painful. However, instead of urinating on the subway tracks, they experimented with "clearing" on the electric fence.

After that, scientists tested it again and they found that urinating on an electric fence (about 600 volts) could make you suffer a rather painful shock. To explain this, a hypothesis is set that is distance . The distance when standing on the electric fence is much closer than the distance in the urine test on the previous subway track. With such close distance, urine flow is more concentrated. This you can easily see, when the urine just comes out of the urethra, it is still a seamless water flow, only then with a large distance it is unstable and divided into droplets.

It's best not to discharge into electric fences

Therefore, if the current is exposed to continuous flow of urine, it may cause an electric shock. With high voltage current, it can be shocking and painful for the penis area. However, in such cases, due to continuous contact with electric current, it cannot lead to death.

Because of this, the story of the man who died from standing "settling down" on the subway track is completely without a scientific basis. If you dare to urinate on a high-voltage electric fence, you may be electrocuted and very painful, but it also depends on whether your urine flow is strong and continuous or weak and broken. So we recommend that you do not try these things, even for currents below 220V for indoor use.