Hair dryer in the bath not necessarily fatal

In his article on electrical injuries,1 Dr Primavesi states that dropping a hair dryer into the bath water would definitely be fatal.

Contrary to Dr Primavesi’s opinion (and the scenes in several old thrillers), dropping a plugged-in electrical device into the water while in the bath is not necessarily fatal.

I had a patient who tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide by doing this who did not even get an electric shock. One only gets electrocuted when the human body is completing an electrical circuit. In the bath, unless one is bathing in distilled water, the bath water is more conductive than the human body and the current would flow from the hair dryer to the ground through the water.

Hydro linesmen will at times work on live electrical lines wearing suits that contain metal strands that conduct electricity to avoid electrically shocking themselves, as any current flows through the path with the least electrical resistance.

A word of advice would be to not try to lift any electrical device out of the bathtub while still plugged in, as at that point one’s body might end up being the only conductor to ground.

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