It's the Amps That Get You

Electricity runs our world. It is amazing how ignorant most people are about it. It can be dangerous, but not always. People say, "It's the amps that kill you." That is true, but it is very misleading. It is like saying, if you get hit by a vehicle, "It is the weight that kills you".
Volts are the pressure of the electrical current. Amps are the unit of the amount of current. A good analogy is water: Water pressure is like voltage, and water flow is like current or amperage. Just remember, current is a term used for water and electricity.
So, back to the car accident analogy, if you got hit by a bus, it would be worse that being hit by a bicycle, right? Sure, unless the bus was only moving 2 miles an hour, and the bicycle was going 50. (I am getting sidetracked here, but the energy in a moving object is the mass X speed X speed. Twice as fast means 4 times the energy. That is not like electricity. )
If you come into the path of electricity, it will flow through you. How much it flows depends on the voltage, and your resistance. It is a simple formula. Amps=volts/ohms (resistance). Life is like that: the action is the push divided by the resistance.
Your resistance is variable, depending on your water intake, salts, and size. From one hand to the other, it might be about one million ohms. How much voltage does it take to feel a shock? If your skin is dry, maybe 30 volts; You will not feel anything from car battery, even though it can heat a wrench red hot if you bridge the terminals. A car battery can supply hundreds of amps, but not through a hgh resistance. Also, a car uses a coil and some electronics to boost the voltage to around 35,000 volts at the spark plugs. You will feel that!
Here is another discussion, but I find problems with his numbers. The section on currents says men can perceive a tingle with AC (60Hz house current) at about .4MA, or .0004 amp. If the resistnace is 1,000,000 ohms, that means a man should feel a tingle at 400 volts. Wrong!
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_3/4.html