Can someone with a pacemaker work with electrostatic painting?

Answer 1

Check with the manufacturer of the device - Guidant/Boston Scientific has a web site with a lot of information on their devices (all major players are essentially the same - Medtronic, St. Jude, Boston Scientific and BioTronik). Website is http://www.bostonscientific.com/templatedata/imports/HTML/CRM/patient/index.html

Answer 2

Opinion only: Electrostatic phenomena include many examples as simple as (1) the attraction of the plastic wrap to your hand after you remove it from a package; (2) the spontaneous explosion of grain silos: (3) damage of electronic components during manufacturing; (4) the operation of photocopiers. Electrostatics involves the buildup of a charge on the surface of objects due to contactwith other surfaces. Although charge exchange happens whenever any two surfaces contact and separate, the effects of charge exchange are usually only noticed when at least one of the surfaces has a high resistance to electrical flow. This is because the charges that transfer to or from the highly resistive surface are more or less trapped there for a long enough time for their effects to be observed. These charges then remain on the object until they either bleed off to ground or are quickly neutralized by a discharge. In response, I would have to say that a person with a pacemaker working in an electrostatic paint booth, would not be affected by electrostatics provided that he/she had protective wear such as gloves; filtered face mask, etc. and did not come into direct and unprotected contact with the booth or objects that were being spray painted. In addition, further protection could be achieved if the paint booth was metallic and grounded.