> My other near miss experience was staying at a bread-and-breakfast farmhouse in Portugal. I had taken a shower, and was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, when I noticed the light above the mirror was crooked. It was one of those swiveling can fixtures, so I reached up to adjust it. I knew it wouldn't be hot since I'd just turned it on, so I grabbed it firmly and then asked myself why it was vibrating. And for that matter why was my whole arm vibrating? When I realized I was being shocked I was able to let go and spent 20 minutes pacing around my room making sure I wasn't dead. You really can't do worse than standing barefoot, soaking wet, on a stone floor, and grabbing a live fixture, can you?
> If anyone would like to explain why that didn't kill me I'm all ears.
I once got jolted while grabbing an electric transformer. I've researched this a bit, but I'm not a doctor so take my hypothesizing here with a grain of salt:
From what I've read, it seems like most deaths are caused by 1) disruption of the human body's electrical systems or 2) severe burns where electricity enters/exits the body.
It's a bit unclear to me what exactly causes burns--it seems that arcs, especially longer, sustained arcs, are related, but not necessarily. This seems to happen more with high-current situations. If you didn't experience burns, it's probably because the current wasn't high enough to cause that.
The more common thing seems to be disruption of the body's electrical systems, which can occur with much weaker currents than cause burns. The most common thing seems to be that electricity across the heart can disrupt the nerves that regulate heartbeat, but electricity across blood vessels can also cause constriction that causes stroke, and electricity across the brain can cause seizures, disruption of breathing/pulse, etc. It really does seem like the vast majority of deaths are caused by electricity across the heart though. If you don't see cardiac symptoms shortly after a shock, you're unlikely to see them, which is probably because the electricity didn't primarily go across your heart.
I'm not sure what the configuration of your grabbing this light fixture was, but a right-handed person grabbing a light fixture with their right hand, would likely see a current traveling through their right arm and then down through their right leg and, to a lesser extent, through their left leg, to the floor (once the current hits your torso there's more "bandwidth" on the way to the floor and the current spreads out more which is why you experienced "vibrating" in your hand and arm, but not your torso). This path doesn't take the current over your heart or any of the parts of the brain that regulate heartbeat or breathing, so that's my best guess as to why you didn't die.