Re: why do you get electrocuted near water, and is being in the ocean more dang

Its not the water itself that cuases electrocution, but any conductor that completes an electrical circuit. Voltage does not harm you but current will. Current is the "flow" of electricity. Birds sitting on a live wire are not hurt because they offer no path for the circuit to be completed to earth ground. Their little bodies are at a high voltage from the wire but there is no place for current to flow thru them into something else. Lets use a picture from my web site.

The little symbol with 3 lines below V1 and V2 is an earth ground, these all are connected together to the earth.

"Circuit" comes from the same root word as "circle". Electrical charge is conserved, neither gained nor lost. When electrical current flows, it eventually returns to its source. You can think of the source as a pump that pumps electrons around the circuit. In the picture V1 and V2 are sources.

The danger of electrocution is because most power circuits are at some point connected to the earth. We call this point an "earth ground". An accidental connection between a different point in the circuit and the earth may create a "short cut" for the current to flow or "short circuit". In the picture V1 and V2 are different and they are both grounded at their bottom. Even if V2 is zero, the Smoky Birdie gets toasted because the top of V1 get back to its bottom by going thru the wires and the Smoky Birdie.

Water in a bathtub could carry a current to metal pipes that are in the earth. Water in the ocean is a good conductor to the earth. In each of these cases half of a circuit is already completed. If you are in one of these situations and you touch an energized circuit at any point other than its earth ground point, your body could be the short cut or "short circuit" that the current will take.

Its the same as if you were holding a wire that is connected to the earth, an "earth ground". The earth ground wont hurt you. But when a high voltage is looking for a short cut back to earth, and your body is earth grounded by a wire or water connected to ground, you might become part of the short circuit path!