Electronic – Can you get shocked if you touch a hot wire whilst perfectly electrically insulated

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Okay this issue has been bothering me immensely so hopefully someone will be able to help me out or steer me in the right direction.

Lets say hypothetically I possessed an absolutely perfectly insulating chair and I stood on it and then touched the hot wire of a three prong socket, would I get shocked? My existing knowledge tells me that I will get 'somewhat' of a shock. This will be because a human body has a non-zero capacitance and so charge will flow onto and off me sequentially in sync with the frequency of the mains supply as it oscillates my potential up and down with the wire that I am presumed to be touching. The question of whether this oscillating current into and out of my body at say 50Hz will shock me severely or not depends on the capacitance of my body. If my capacitance is extremely low (as is the case for a bird perhaps), then the shock and the sensation all together would probably be minimal. If I were a large animal like an elephant then the current would be greater since my capacitance would be greater. So my question becomes : Is the capacitance of a human body great enough to cause a severe shock in this case?

Now if this is all true and my suppositions are correct then why does a high voltage repairman have to wear a Faraday cage type suit (as in the case in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YmFHAFYwmY). Is this because the voltage is so high and the capacitance of the helicopter is very large so that immense current flows back and forth during each oscillation? Because of this immense current, both the repairmen and the pilot must wear a Faraday cage suit to ensure that the current flows around their bodies via the skin effect? If they did not wear those Faraday cage suits then they would surely be shocked to death since the arc between the wand they use to initially touch the line shows that the current going into and out of the helicopter as well as the potential difference between the line and the helicopter is immense (surely enough to kill them both). So then I ask, well if the Faraday cage suit is what is protecting them from severe potentially fatal shocks, then why do electricians not wear them when working? If my belief about the Faraday cage suit being the primary protection of the high voltage line repairmen is true, then surely if I wore one and touched the live wire of a three pronged socket whilst perfectly grounded I should be completely immune to a shock?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

Best Answer

Doesn't seem to bother these little guys....

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