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  • Shock to the Heart, Or:A Primer on the Practical Applications of Electricity
  • Katherine E. Standefer (bio)

Shock to the Heart

In the first instant, my hands became claws. Paralyzed, a redhot whip tearing through my back: Did somebody kick in my spine? And then I knew. And I was screaming.

“There’s no way you wouldn’t scream if you felt it,” my sister had said.

A Practical Application

The intentional use of electricity upon the human body dates back at least 122 years, to the electrocution of William Kemmler in 1890 in New York’s Auburn Prison. Kemmler—a native of Buffalo, who murdered his common-law wife, Tillie, with a hatchet—was sentenced to death in 1889, narrowly evading death by hanging. His electric chair was first issue, sparkling clean.

A Review of the Literature

The amount of electricity it takes to kill or damage a human varies considerably, depending on where the current originates and its contact with critical body parts—namely, the heart and the brain. The level of current is the amount of voltage applied divided by the resistance that voltage encounters. According to The Physics Factbook, as little as .06 milliamps can cause fatality by stimulating dangerous arrhythmias in the heart. Humans can generally perceive shocks at 1 to 5 milliamps, and 10 milliamps is the level “where pain is sensed.” At 100 milliamps, severe muscular contractions occur; at 200, severe burning.

Shock to the Heart

I was down on my knees in the soccer field grass, facing the backs of houses, where kitchen lights glinted out the windows—dull, far away. The sky was navy and full of cold. After three years, this was it: my internal cardiac defibrillator firing for the first time. [End Page 96]

I imagined I must be searing with light. I imagined everyone could see my bones.

When the defibrillator thumped a second time, I knew I would die, lightning-struck, unable to move. Lightning strapped to my heart: Why aren’t I dizzy? Why am I awake? My chest and arms shrinking, lava-hot with electricity. The moment unfolding endlessly, a maul to the chest, a thousand needles. “Someone call 9-1-1!” I screamed.

Glossary: Congenital Long QT Syndrome

A genetic condition in which the heart’s electrical preparation for its next beat (repolarization) can take too long. The delay is exacerbated by various types of physiological stress, most related to the release of epinephrine in the body. This delay, throwing off the rhythm of the heart, can trigger fatal arrhythmias. The condition is typically treated with adrenergic-blocking drugs (beta blockers), which decrease the effects of adrenaline. Those with documented cardiac arrest may also have a cardiac defibrillator implanted in their bodies, to restart the heart if it is inadequately pumping blood.

A Practical Application

From the beginning, Kemmler’s lawyers argued that electrocution was “cruel and unusual punishment.” But this was the height of the War of Currents, when Nikola Tesla’s new transformer for alternating current (ac) had Thomas Edison (and his business-tycoon backers) scrambling to maintain the use of direct current in public utilities, thus protecting their patent royalties. According to Mark Essig’s Edison and the Electric Chair, Edison attempted to smear the public image of ac by electrocuting animals with ac in high-profile “studies” and secretly paying Harold P. Brown and Arthur Kennelly to invent the electric chair. When Kemmler’s lawyers fought for an alternate method of execution, the prosecution received substantial funding from Edison’s friend J. P. Morgan. The electrocution would proceed: a demonstration of the treachery of ac to all.

Lightning Flowers

A sign of blessing. A curse. God’s warning, God’s vengeance.

Lightning in the body heals illness. Cures deafness, cures blindness. [End Page 97]

Nurtures psychic powers.

From the east, a good omen. From the west, ominous.

Sparks hypersexuality.

I devour the stories I hear. I crave a mythology for the lightning of my own body.

Shock to the Heart

A third shock—maybe it’s misfiring—pummeled by hot razor blades—maybe it’s never going to stop. Realizing I could either breathe or scream, what had I learned...

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