A circuit for mitigating electric shock including an external impedance detection circuit and a test and holdoff circuit. The external impedance detection circuit detects a presence of an external impedance, such as by detecting a relative change in voltage from a startup condition and a test condition. The test and holdoff circuit inhibits operation of a power converter which delivers power to be consumed by a load. The startup condition is defined by mains power applied to the circuit with negligible power consumed by a load. The test condition is defined by non-zero power delivered to the load. According to another aspect, the external impedance detection circuit measures an input voltage using a high input power which is greater than a shock hazard threshold at a duration less than a threshold time duration and determines the presence of the external impedance based on low pass filters having different time constants.