I'm no electrical engineer and my last training in safety around voltages is ages back. I will answer the question according to the wording it had in the first versions:
Many people now practice "earthing", physically linking themselves to the earth ground plug of their home's electrical system. They go as far as sleeping on mesh wire sheets plugged into ground to protect from stray EMF. [...] If a hot wire from, say, a washing machine, suddenly shorts to its chassis, doesn't that route to ground, and isn't our happy "earther" suddenly now part of a deadly circuit involving the hot wire?
Basically, yes. As pointed out in <PERSON> answer, all or most devices with a conducting chassis have this grounded for safety reasons. In these cases, it should make little difference if the person is grounded.However ...
Let's look at another scenario: Your alarm clock is (not your cell phone but) an older model with an AC connection. You managed to damage the cable near where it enters the (plastic) chassis and touch the live wire when fumbling for the thing one early morning.
Case 1) You are not grounded in any special way, but lying on a cotton sheet on some mattress on a wooden bed. 75
Resistance for electric current to the ground will be very high. Electrically, you are - grossly simplified - now a capacitor connected to an alternating current via a 1k$\Omega$ resistor (your arm).
Case 2) Same as before but you lie on a grounded mesh. This time you are a 1k$\Omega$ resistor between the live wire and ground. Far more current will flow.
High resistance towards grounding plays a minor role in safety around eletricity. The normal case is that a device is built safely as described. For work on electrical equipment, there's 5 basic rules:
* switch the power supply to the device you work on off
* secure it against switching on,
* confirm by measurement that there's indeed no voltage
* first ground then short circuit the live wires so if the device is switched on the circuit breaker will engage
* cover nearby devices, if still connected to power supply
So you consider how not to touch a life wire in the first place, not about where the current will go when you do or what the resistance is. The only instance I know of where this was given serious consideration is safety shoes, these need a high resistance according to the relevant industry codes. 71