Hey there! I'm writing a scene where my character gets electrocuted as torture, but I don’t know how to describe what's happening because I don't know what he's actually being electrocuted with. What is the "safest" way to electrocute someone? Something that produces a high voltage, but not enough to kill them. Is it better to use a car battery with jumper cables? Electrodes? And where is the best place to put them on the body? The only thing I know is that the current can't cross the heart.
Well nowadays the most common way this is done is by repeated use of a Taser or stun gun. It’s also worth noting that most people use the term ‘electrocuted’ to mean a lethal amount of electricity. You might want to use something like ‘electric shock’ instead to avoid confusion.
There is still a significant death rate but I can’t really say whether it’s higher or lower then for older electrical tortures (like using a car battery or more commonly a telephone magneto) because there aren’t any statistics on death rates for those older tortures.
If you’re writing a story set anywhere in the last… I’d say roughly four decades (possibly a bit longer in some countries) then a Taser or stun gun is mostly likely. Older then that, or in particular places, a field telephone magneto could also be possible. And if you’re talking about say early 1900s, World War 2 or the wars in African and Asian countries to secure independence from colonialists: field telephone magnetos.
This isn’t so much to do with the death rate as it is to do with what’s readily available. Even if a magneto was ‘safer’ you don’t really find them lying around anymore. Whereas a lot of places sell Tasers and stun guns, many police forces issue them as standard equipment.
A lot of the deaths and serious injuries from Tasers and stun guns come from falling injuries. Basically; the victim is shocked while standing, they fall and because they can’t move to protect themselves they hit their head. Which can cause brain damage and death in worst case scenarios.
I appreciate what you mean as a writer asking ‘what’s the safest way to do this to my character’ but you do have to accept that torture of any kind is not safe. All of these practices come with a chance of death. That doesn’t mean you have to kill off the character.
Personally I think that as long as the character surviving doesn’t imply a torture is ‘harmless’ (or much less harmful then it is) then there’s nothing wrong with deciding a character got lucky.
And while there have been a lot or deaths, far more then people tend to think, many many people have survived electrical torture. There’s nothing wrong with deciding your character is one of them.
If you’re set on using something with electrodes in your story then uh… think about why the characters have a magneto? I mean even the portable ones are pretty heavy. And they’re huge by today’s standards. And they’re not really useful anymore. Unless you have also experienced the joys of staying somewhere where blowing up the local powerstation is practically a national sport. (Visiting my grandparents was always fun and, as my yaiyai would say, if the power is off go play outside.)
Even then there isn’t really research I can point to that says shocking particular areas is ‘safer’. Shocks above the heart, whether they’re from a Taser, magneto or anything else, can cause heart attacks. But plenty of people get hit with a Taser in the chest and do not have a heart attack. Conversely there are cases where people have been shocked in the back, in the legs, in the side and ended up dead.
There isn’t proper research on this: because the experiment would involve killing people.
My impression from what I’ve read about Taser fatalities is that it is repeated shocks, rather then the specific area, that are more likely to cause death.
In torture scenarios, most torturers avoid the face and head because it’s more likely to leave obvious marks. Torturers commonly target the genitals, hands and torso, including the chest.
I’m going to leave you with a couple of links that I suggest you read.
The first is the masterpost on the common psychological effects of torture. Next is the post on common misconceptions (to be clear there’s nothing in this ask that strikes me as ‘bad’ but it’s better to be aware of the common pitfalls especially if you’ve not written this before.)
The third is Alleg’s The Question which is an account of his torture by French forces during the Franco-Algerian war. It contains a lot of descriptions of electrical torture using a magneto. It’s an old book and available in a lot of languages fairly cheaply. (If you absolutely can’t access it message me and I’ll copy over some relevant passages I typed up, but I think you’d get a lot from the book.)
Finally you might want to take a look at Reuter’s piece on Tasers, mostly because it’s relevant, free and shorter then Rejali.
I hope that helps. :)
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