Why does KCl induce cardiac arrest?
137901
Potassium chloride is in the class of drugs called potassium supplements which are used to treat low potassium conditions (hypokalemia) or prevent them from occurring. Potassium is the principal positive ion inside of the cells of the body and is used in nerve conduction, muscle contraction, and normal kidney function. A deficiency of potassium causes weakness, fatigue, heart rhythm problems, paralysis, and kidney dysfunction.\nCardiac arrest can occur with high potassium conditions, such as chronic renal failure, burns, acidosis,  dehydration, and potassium sparing diuretic usage. Potassium supplements should not be given to these patients.\nIt will interact with the normal ionic balance of the muscle depolorization stage and effectively stop the heart from being able to beat.
155263
If you wanna know how hyperkalemia causes problems here it is:\nNormal serum potassium : 3.5 - 5.5 mmol/L\n\n> 5.5 mmol/L = hyperkalemia\n\nHyperkalemia = excess Sr. K i.e. excess potassium in extracellular fluid (fluid out side the cells- includess blood etc)\n\nExcess K in ECF ---> higher inward gradient ----> more K goes into the cell -----> hyperpolarises the cell ---> the cell takes longer or is not easily depolarised ----> so u get cardiac arrest, muscle paralysis, paralytic ileus, etc.
798520
A normal QT interval should be less than 0.45 seconds.  Unless you know how to read an ECG, don't freak yourself out by trying to measure it.  It can be prolonged by drugs (prescription and otherwise), electrolyte imbalance and ischaemia (lack of oxygen to the muscle).  The bottom line is it puts you at risk of ventricular arrhythmias which can be fatal, the QT interval not being dangerous in itself.  Your QT interval shortens as your heart rate goes up.  This is normal and nothing to worry about.
298334
Psychological\nThe perception of electric shock can be different depending on the voltage, duration, current, path taken, etc. Current entering the hand has a threshold of perception of about 5 to 10 milliamperes (mA) for DC and about 1 to 10 mA for AC at 60 Hz.\n\nPhysiological\nBurns: Tissue heating due to resistance can cause extensive and deep burns. High-voltage (> 500 to 1000 V) shocks tend to cause internal burns due to the large energy (which is proportional to the square of the voltage) available from the source. Damage due to current is through tissue heating.\n\nVentricular fibrillation: A low-voltage (110 to 220 V), 60-Hz AC current traveling through the chest for a fraction of a second may induce ventricular fibrillation at currents as low as 60mA. With DC, 300 to 500 mA is required. If the current has a direct pathway to the heart (eg, via a cardiac catheter or other electrodes), a much lower current of less than 1 mA, (AC or DC) can cause fibrillation. Fibrillations are usually lethal because all the heart muscle cells move independently. Above 200mA, muscle contractions are so strong that the heart muscles cannot move at all.\n\nNeurological effects: Current can cause interference with nervous control, especially over the heart and lungs. When the current path is through the head, it appears that, with sufficient current, loss of consciousness almost always occurs swiftly. (This is borne out by some limited self-experimentation by early designers of the electric chair. and by research from the field of animal husbandry, where electric stunning has been extensively studied).\n\nThe recommended first aid for someone who had received a severe electrical shock has three major components:\n1) Call for help \n2) Make sure the victim is no longer in contact with the electrical current source. Turn off all power if this can be done quickly. \n3) Check for breathing and heart beat and apply cardiopulmonary resuscitation, if necessary \n\n[Also] "the human body is not much of a resistor. Rather, it is a fairly good conductor of electricity because the fluids in our bodies are solutions of salts and ions which readily enable electricity to flow."\n\nMore information and details can be found in the links below.
259472
ELECTRICAL IMPULSES sent down by "nodes" thru conducting pathways towards the atria and ventricles.......these atria and vents r made of muscles which contract on recievin the electrical shocks........and thats when the blood moves forward\nwhen their is no impulse being sent forward........the chambers of the heart relax and get filled with blood.....\n\njust waiting for the next impulse to come by and the heart contracts again\n\nthis goes on n on till u die!
393356
It would cause your neurons to fire. That's why when you get zapped by electricity your muscles tense up. If you've ever been in physical therapy they have something where they attach electrodes to your skin and send a small pulse through you and it causes mild contraction of the muscles.\n\nThat's basically it.
912330
Loss of potassium has to be balanced by some other ion, in order to maintian ionic charge balance.  If there were efflux of K with no corresponding change in anything else, then the loss of the + ion (K+) would mean the inside of the bacteria would become quite negatively charged.  However, what would tend to happen is an increase in influx of the other major + ion, sodium (Na+) and perhaps Calcium (Ca+2).  Though this would restore the electrical balance, you would now have a chemical imbalance- processes in the bacteria do not proceed exactly the same in the presence of different chemicals-so, there would be biochemical disruption.
574352
A low-voltage (110 to 220 V), 60-Hz AC current traveling through the chest for a fraction of a second may induce ventricular fibrillation at currents as low as 60mA. With DC, 300 to 500 mA is required. If the current has a direct pathway to the heart (e.g., via a cardiac catheter or other electrodes), a much lower current of less than 1 mA, (AC or DC) can cause fibrillation. Fibrillations are usually lethal because all the heart muscle cells move independently. Above 200mA, muscle contractions are so strong that the heart muscles cannot move at all.
174207
I think the electricity from the taser causes causes your all of your nervous cells to trigger all at once.  When a nervous cell is triggered it needs some time to recover before it can send another signal, so if all of your cells are in this recovery stage then I guess this is why it would incapacitate a person for a limited time.
957309
because your heart stops beating for a second.
97976
If you experience any of the following serious side effects, stop taking potassium chloride and seek emergency medical attention or contact your doctor immediately: \n      · an allergic reaction (difficulty breathing; closing of the throat; swelling of the lips, tongue, or face; or hives); \n      · confusion; \n      · an irregular heartbeat; \n      · difficulty breathing; \n      · unusual fatigue, weakness, or heavy legs; \n      · abdominal pain or severe cramping; \n      · black, bloody, or tarry stools. \n •  Other, less serious side effects may be more likely to occur. Continue to take potassium chloride and talk to your doctor if you experience \n      · nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or abdominal discomfort; \n      · a rash; \n      · slight tingling in the hands or feet; or \n      · anxiety. \n •  Side effects other than those listed here may also occur. Talk to your doctor about any side effect that seems unusual or that is especially bothersome.
531681
if the person dies immediately, something either clogged the bloodflow-like a clot. or the heart's "electrical system" could tell the heart to beat too fast, too slow, or not at all.\nthe person dies.\nthe heart is really just a pump. when it stops pumping, the blood settles to the lowest part of the body. oxygen can no longer get to the cells. everything stops functioning.
732342
I am not sure if you mean - can you administer a substance to yourself that would induce a cardiac arrest OR by thinking about it real hard, being in emotional distress, or by performing some extraordinary physical activity, could you induce cardiac arrest?\n\nYou could potentially administer any number of substances that would cause the heart to go into an arrhythmia, or go too fast, or stop...all potentially precipitating an arrest.  This could be done by mouth or by IV or via electricity.  \n\nIn terms of making it happen by running too hard or having an emotional event.  In short, you would need to have some heart disease there already in order for this to happen.  Therefore if you had a young healthy heart, it would be virtually impossible to induce a cardiac arrest by anything you did or by any amount of emotional distress.
405351
Fight and Flight: Cardiac arrest resuscitation.
734491
A defibrillator is a medical device used in the defibrillation of the heart. It consists of a central unit and a set of two electrodes. The central unit provides a source of power and control. The two electrodes are placed directly on or in the patient. The device is designed to deliver an electric shock to the patient, in an effort to stop ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. Ventricular fibrillation is a situation of electrical chaos in the heart's conduction system, in essence distorting the coordinated contraction of cardiac muscular tissue. This leads to a situation where the heart produces minimal or no forward blood flow, causing circulatory arrest and death within minutes from hypoxic brain damage. The defibrillation current depolarizes the entire electrical system of the heart causing a complete ceasure of electrical activity. This, in turn, gives the opportunity of impulses from the normal conduction pathways to regain control of the muscular tissue of the heart.
400328
Since both HCl and KCl are strong elecrolyes, both should remain totally dissassocitated in solution.  I dont think any HCl will react with KCl in this case.\n\nHowever, have you ever heard the rule "Always Add Acid"?\nWhenever you dilute an acid with water, the resulting solution gives off energy (dissolving HCl in water is an exothermic reaction).  This when you dilsute 1 M HCl to .5 M HCl, energy will be released and will cause a temperature change in the solution.\n\na)  The number of moles of HCl used in this experiement is constant. This value will be equal to the number of moles of HCl present in the initial 100 ml of 1 M solution.\n1 M = x moles / .1 L, thus you have .1 moles of HCL.\n\nb)  The heat of the reaction will be the heat given off when the HCl solution is diluted.\n\nc)  Once you know the heat energy given off by the reaction, you can calculate the change in temperatutre if you know the specific heat of the final solution.  I am not sure if you are suppose to estimate the final solution's specific heat as being equal to that of water (4.186 J/g C), but that would be my guess.\nQ = m*c*(delta T)\n\n\nEDIT:\n"davidchingwong13" is correct in his application of the common ion effect.  By dissolving additional Cl- ions in the solution by adding HCl, the equilibrium between solid and aqeuous KCl is disturbed.  However, KCl is a strong electrolyte, it readily dissolves and breaks in to ions in water.  I doubt the addion of so few moles of Cl- ions to an already unsaturated KCl solution willl effect it that much.\n\nHowever....dissolving KCl in water is a endothermic reaction, so if, indeed, the KCl did precipitate out, it would be exothermic and give off additional energy.
811861
KCl(s)  ---->  K+(aq)  +  Cl-(aq)