Static Electricity Throwing Someone Across the Room?

From: Garry (gmalloy_at_cogeco.ca)
Date: 10/18/04 

Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:45:06 -0400

On this INTP list I subscribe to, a woman related an incident in which she
was "thrown across the room" by a discharge of static electricity from her
hand. I naturally thought that under everyday circumstances such an
incident is extremely unlikely. I would like to know what somebody thinks
about this.

Secondly, if a person used a static electric generator, stepped off of it
(isolated) and touched a ground, how much charge would be needed to cause a
person to be thrown backward from the resulting discharge? Same question,
just a different situation.

Silly question, yes, but I can't find an adequate source of info. on the
subject on the net to come to an accurate conclusion. I'm just curious and
need to know.

Thanks,
Garry

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