# Suicide by 9-volt battery.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 4, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473 "2004-05-04T15:32:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/1 "2004-05-04T15:32:03Z")
I got a chuckle from sundays edition of [PICKLES](http://www.comics.com/wash/pickles/archive/pickles-20040502.html).
I must have tested a 9 volt on my tongue at least a 100 dozen times in my life. The thought of offing myself with 9 measly volts is absurd.
But you know what? It’s a crazy world and strange things do happen.
Tell me it 'aint so.
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/2 "2004-05-04T15:45:25Z")
It ain’t so. However, if you REALLY work at it, you could conceivably kill yourself with a 9 V battery. If you could jam a couple metal probes into your heart in such a manner as to allow 100 mA or more to pass through the right spot, it could happen. But the tongue? No. The current flows from one batter terminal to the other through the moist surface, and doesn’t get anywhere near anything vital, like the heart or brain. I think I’m safe in saying no one has ever died as a direct result of testing a battery on their tongue.
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### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/3 "2004-05-04T15:56:41Z")
The Darwin Awards site (validity questionable), has a story about a death from a 9 volt battey.
Running a wire across a 9 volt battery is supposed to be dangerous as well, and might be indirectly lethal if it ignites something, like you.
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### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/4 "2004-05-04T15:57:45Z")
:smack:
Darwin Awards link:
[http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html](http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-50.html)
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/5 "2004-05-04T16:10:36Z")
Ok, so _this_ is what the millenia-old “Baghdad battery” was for – not electroplating, not Van Daniken lightbulbs, not magic tricks or even as a sexual aid – it was the world’s first portable electric chair!
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### Author:  [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/6 "2004-05-04T18:16:18Z")
I’m not sure about actually getting yourself killed, but I know from personal experience that you shouldn’t put a 9-volt into the pocket with your keys. Those suckers get hot.
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### Author:  [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/7 "2004-05-04T19:25:58Z")
Any battery will get hot.
And begin to smoke.
And hurt.
I heard. 😉
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/8 "2004-05-04T19:46:48Z")
I heard this story once. It was purported to be true:
An electronics instructor was showing his class how to use a Simpson analog VOM. (Apparently this happened a while ago.) To demonstrate how the meter could measure resistance, he rotated the switch to one of the ohms settings and touched the probes to his temples. Killed him instantly.
Not sure if the story is true or not, but I guess it’s possible. Some of those old meters had high excitation currents. And some probes are very sharp. If he punctured his skin, then I suppose it’s possible to get jolted with enough voltage to kill.
But assuming the story is true, what organ actually got jolted? By placing the probes at the temples, I would suspect the brain got hit harder than the heart. But is the brain that susceptible to damage via electric current? I thought the heart was much more susceptible.
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/9 "2004-05-04T19:50:35Z")
> [@FilmGeek](#):
>
> Any battery will get hot.
Depends on the battery’s internal resistance. A NiCAD can get quite toasty if shorted…
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### Author:  [@alterego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alterego)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/10 "2004-05-04T19:55:29Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#):
>
> No. The current flows from one batter terminal to the other through the moist surface, and doesn’t get anywhere near anything vital, like the heart or brain.
Ok. So what if you swallowed it on an empty stomach? Or ( in all seriousness) stuck it up your butt?
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### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/11 "2004-05-04T21:11:42Z")
**Crafter Man** that story is either an urban legend, or my body resistance is high. I have a Simpson 260-6, and in the interest of science went downstairs to the shop, and had to go to the R x 10K setting to get a reading, which was 5 or 50K ohms. I didn’t feel any ill effect, and inasmuch as I’m still typing, am not dead.
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/12 "2004-05-04T21:32:33Z")
I’ve heard the SImpson VOM story before. It was told to my electronics class as a warning of working in the lab alone.
Supposedly the old analog VOM’s had high voltage batteries in them, something like 36 or 64 volts. If this is true, I suspect they were special use meters.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/13 "2004-05-04T21:38:35Z")
\
This would be such a _humiliating_ thing to have listed as your cause of death…
Hm, mischance or suicide on that squid I wonder…and if he was on the job doe SGLI kick in?
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/14 "2004-05-04T23:00:46Z")
> [@danceswithcats](#):
>
> **Crafter Man** that story is either an urban legend, or my body resistance is high. I have a Simpson 260-6, and in the interest of science went downstairs to the shop, and had to go to the R x 10K setting to get a reading, which was 5 or 50K ohms. I didn’t feel any ill effect, and inasmuch as I’m still typing, am not dead.
But I assume you didn’t puncture your skin. In the story, the instructor jabbed so hard that it punctured his skin.
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### Author:  [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/15 "2004-05-04T23:33:25Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#):
>
> It ain’t so. However, if you REALLY work at it, you could conceivably kill yourself with a 9 V battery. If you could jam a couple metal probes into your heart in such a manner as to allow 100 mA or more to pass through the right spot, it could happen. But the tongue? No. The current flows from one batter terminal to the other through the moist surface, and doesn’t get anywhere near anything vital, like the heart or brain. I think I’m safe in saying no one has ever died as a direct result of testing a battery on their tongue.
To expand on this, it turns out that what determines how you fare from an dose of electricity is the current across the main parts of your body, not necessarily the voltage directly.
[More info here.](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345350804/qid=1083684023/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8484428-2552151?v=glance&s=books)
Although I seem to recall a research article posted in the early 1990s at the college where I took Electic Engineering that not everything above 100mA meant death. The interesting thing was, from 100mA to 200mA, death was certain, even though bodily damage was not necessarily that great. Beyond 200mA, there was increased injury (but not automatically death), and far beyond it injuries pretty much guaranteed death, but the range from 100mA to 200mA was the “death range”.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/16 "2004-05-04T23:51:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Originally posted by **danceswithcats**
> _I have a Simpson 260-6, and in the interest of science went downstairs to the shop, and had to go to the R x 10K setting to get a reading, which was 5 or 50K ohms. I didn’t feel any ill effect, and inasmuch as I’m still typing, am not dead._
>
> Originally posted by **Crafter\_Man**
> _But I assume you didn’t puncture your skin. In the story, the instructor jabbed so hard that it punctured his skin._
Clearly, in the interests of science, **danceswithcats** must now administer a skin-puncturing test to the temple. 😉
I’m mostly just amused by the thought of a Doper reading about an unlikely death and then immediately going out and replicating those conditions to demonstrate said unlikelihood. I mean, dude, is $4.95 really that much? 😛
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### Author:  [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2004, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/17 "2004-05-05T00:02:04Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Ok, so _this_ is what the millenia-old “Baghdad battery” was for – not electroplating, not Van Daniken lightbulbs, not magic tricks or even as a sexual aid – it was the world’s first portable electric chair!
Wonder if Saddam used one in the dungeon?
---
### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2004, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/18 "2004-05-05T04:25:17Z")
> [@alterego](#):
>
> Ok. So what if you swallowed it on an empty stomach? Or ( in all seriousness) stuck it up your butt?
Same deal as the tongue. Most of the current will follow the path of lowest resistance, which will almost certainly be from one battery terminal to the other via the moist membranes or gastric fluids they contact.
Disclaimer: Please don’t eat 9 V batteries, or insert them into any body orifice.
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### Author:  [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2004, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/19 "2004-05-05T05:57:58Z")
A nine volt battery will have you seeing stars if you distribute the current across your whole jaw, by applying the terminals to your top and bottom orthodontic braces.
I suspect that there was a capacitive effect, with the discharge across the back teeth. It really, really hurt.
Simon
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [May 5, 2004, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suicide-by-9-volt-battery/243473/20 "2004-05-05T06:57:35Z")
As an aside, my cousin tells the hysterical story of his -near- carwreck.
He went to plug his radar detector in and dropped it. While he was fishing around on next to the seat (or where ever) for it, he held the barrel end of the power cord in his mouth.
Zap-zappers.
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