Electricity And The Body

New Orleans, LA Electrical Injuries and Death Lawyer

For many years our most violent criminal offenders were sentenced to death by the electric chair.  The electric chair utilized between 500 and 2,000 volts of electricity.  Many states now consider death by electrocution to be cruel and unusual punishment.  

The overhead power lines that run across our streets and into our homes and businesses carry voltages ranging from 7,000 to 24,000.   This means that a personal injury victim that comes in contact with an overhead power line can receive between 3 and 12 times more voltage than was used to execute our most violent criminal offenders.  Such extreme voltage often results in catastrophic personal injury or wrongful death.

Electricity can cause a wide variety of personal injuries to the human body.  The way in which electricity affects the body is complex and incompletely understood by the medical community.  Nevertheless, victims of high voltage electricity can be left with major disabilities.  

In most electrocutions, the personal injury victim is interposed within a circuit.  Current entering the body typically produces a charring burn wound, whereas the exiting current may destroy tissue in an explosive pattern.  Often hands and feet where electricity exited the body are so severely damaged that amputation is necessary.  Severe 3^rd degree thermal burn injuries can occur to large portions of the skin if the clothing of the personal injury victim catches on fire during the event.

Electricity can have devastating affects on the brain and central nervous system.  Often personal injury victims exposed to high voltages can begin to experience severe neurological problems years after an electrical contact.  In some cases, victims begin to experience devastating symptoms resembling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease.  These symptoms may include permanent memory deficits, severe muscle spasms resembling seizures, muscle atrophy, and even quadri or paraplegia.  Many in the medical community believe that this delayed onset of neurological problems occurs because high voltage electricity changes the body at a cellular level.  Cells mutate and begin to die more rapidly, causing the body to essentially decay from the inside out.  Common tests such as MRI’s and CAT scans cannot show these changes in the body at a cellular level.

Unfortunately, attorneys and “hired gun experts” employed by electric utility companies often try to convince judges and juries that electrocution victims are faking their neurological injuries.  Electric utility companies point to the fact that such conditions cannot be linked to the high voltage electricity by MRI’s and CAT scans.  These companies imply that electrocution victims are lying about their condition because their neurological symptoms begin to develop years after the accident.  Despite understanding the complex medical science associated with electricity, these companies deny the truth at trial as a means of maximizing their profits at the expense of personal injury victims.

If you or a family member have been seriously injured in an electrical accident, you need to hire an attorney that understands the complex medical science associated with these types of injuries.  We are those attorneys. Learn about your legal rights from an experienced Louisiana electrocution lawyer by calling 504-581-4892 or by filling out our free, no obligation case review form.