On the probability of ventricular fibrillation due to electric shock

Abstract

When exposed to a specified electrical shock, the
probability that a randomly chosen individual will undergo
fatal ventricular fibrillation can be regarded as a function
of random variation in the human population along two
dimensions. The first dimension is the individual's body
impedance characteristic: for this, we introduce a new
two-parameter model that improves on the simpler
one-parameter model used in previous work. The second
dimension is the individual's current tolerance: we codify
some curves used in previous practice. We also consider
methods of solving the resulting shock circuit and show that
the fixed-point iteration method can give incorrect results.