Even if you had wires on both ends of the pole, nothing would go into the person because the path of least resistance would be the pole. You would have to energize the pole and directly connect the person to the other wire in order to complete the circuit. Then the resistance of the human body becomes an issue, and using this paper as a reference, the worst case scenario of internal body resistance is ~300 ohm, and the threshold for immediate cardiac symptoms is ~100 mA.
Then, 12V / 300 ohm = 40 mA. So closer than I’d like, but probably not fatal even in the absolute worst case scenario where there is no electrical resistance provided by the skin and a direct electrical path through the heart.
Even if you had wires on both ends of the pole, nothing would go into the person because the path of least resistance would be the pole. You would have to energize the pole and directly connect the person to the other wire in order to complete the circuit. Then the resistance of the human body becomes an issue, and using this paper as a reference, the worst case scenario of internal body resistance is ~300 ohm, and the threshold for immediate cardiac symptoms is ~100 mA.
Then, 12V / 300 ohm = 40 mA. So closer than I’d like, but probably not fatal even in the absolute worst case scenario where there is no electrical resistance provided by the skin and a direct electrical path through the heart.