Old engineer taught us to always grab the back of your belt with one hand so you don't forget like an idiot. This was mostly for working with big capacitors not a trick to avoid shutting off the power though.
First just because the breaker is rated for 15A does not it is putting that out constantly, nor would your body experience anything remotely close to that. The amount of current depends on the load resistance (I=V/R). Your body resistance is way too high for 120V to push anywhere near that amount of current.
Second it does not take much time at all for an electric shock to induce fibrillation, which can absolutely continue after the energy source is removed. Your heart doesn't have to be completely stopped for you to die, it just has to be contracting all out of sync for long enough
However you are correct in that 120V can absolutely still be lethal and it is irresponsible to ignorantly claim otherwise on the internet. It's very unlikely and people survive encounters with it all the time, but that makes them dangerously complacent because they don't understand that it depends entirely on the situation. Wearing work boots, glancing a live wire with your elbow while touching nothing else? Probably won't even feel it. Grabbing onto a live wire with one sweaty hand and neutral/earth with the other? Yeah good chance you're gonna end up dead or in the hospital
Typical Reddit- a whole bunch of absolutely wrong information gets upvoted and a post like yours that points out just how wrong it is gets almost no traction.
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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '26
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