AirGunner

+1 Getting tased, for training purposes, was not only one of the most stupid choices I have made but one of the most painful. Unless the guy was high on meth or another substance, I don't see how anyone could handle more than one shock.

cardiomd

Crash cart paddles are basically a giant capacitor that stores up a large voltage (we measure energy, but the voltage is probably circa 1000 V and energy stored is 200-360 joules or so). It then delivers it all at once across the patient / heart. The newer types will reverse the charge polarity halfway through the shock.

Tasers work by giving a huge voltage but extremely low current that is at high frequency that can interrupt nerve function. They claim it is not specifically painful which is why I wanted to know more about Airhoss's claim. I've toyed with the idea of getting it done when I was looking at the subject from a medical perspective, but haven't had the courage.

There have been a lot of incidents where people have died after being tased, but it is difficult often to say what happened. They should be marketed as "less-lethal" weapons, not necessarily non-lethal. Probably better than beating the heck out of a subject or a prolonged struggle, but excessive use due to the marketing as "safe" remains a concern.

Airhoss

First off a T.A.S.E.R is just one brand of a series of Electronic Control Devices (E.C.D's) TASER stands for, and I am not kidding here,

Thomas
A
Swift
Electronic
Rifle

The guy who invented the TASER was a big sci-fi fan, Tom Swift in particular.

An ECD will not cause electrical interference to the heart muscle. It has been documented to cause other health issues due to the extreme pain and mental stress that it causes. Most ECD injuries occur due to the subject falling not the electrical current that caused the fall.

The severity of an ECD deployment depends on several variables. First and foremost is probe spread, the wider the spread the more effective the ECD will be. In most instances where you see a subject fight through an ECD deployment the reason is that the spread on the probes wasn't very wide or the probes didn't stick properly. Other factors can include physical make up. People that are lightly muscled are less severely affected by an ECD and heavily muscled people feel more pain. There is also a very small percentage of folks who due to different anatomical issue can withstand an ECD deployment without undue stress or pain.

An ECD is NOT primarily a pain compliance tool, while it is extremely painful, the ECD provides it's control over a subject by causing an electrical current between the probes that disrupts the receptors between the central nervous system and the musculature in the body.

So to answer the question of what does it feel like?

Here is my experience with it. I was required to take an ECD ride for qualification as an LEO defensive tactics trainer. I had the probes placed not fired, one on my left shoulder and the other on my right ankle which is as wide a probe spread as you can get. I am thickly muscled. A LEO ECD uses a 5 second burst then shuts off until the trigger is pulled again, a civilian TASER uses a 30 second burst which I can't fathom. We were using a standard LEO issued ECD.

I was placed over a padded floor and had two guys one on each arm to hold me and lower me to the floor as the ECD fired. The instructor counted down. When the ECD fired I felt the most white hot all encompassing pain I'd ever felt in my life. Imagine every nerve and fiber in your body sending pain signals to your brain all at once. I had told myself previous to the deployment that if at all possible I was going to shout out "Is that the best you got!" as if it didn't hurt.

My mind went from rational thought to one and one thought only as soon as the ECD came on, and that was "MAKE IT STOP!" After several seconds I thought that it would never stop and that I couldn't take anymore without dying. I was not in control of my body and simply fell to the floor. I wanted to move my arms and legs but no matter how hard I tried they simply wouldn't respond. The other thing that I remebered was the distinct smell of burning flesh, the probes get very hot and I had pretty good burns that blistered where they had been attached.

As fast as it came on it was over and the pain instantly stopped. Watching the video I had been holding my breath the whole time and soon as the ECD shut off my whole body relaxed and I let out a big breath. I had no after effects except that my ankle was twitching and stiff for about an hour after the event where the probe was attached.

OC spray, pepper spray, not to be confused with mace or tear gas. The last time I had to qualify with OC spray they used the new and improved orange foamy gel stuff and it was horrible. HOWEVER and here is the big gottcha with any and all OC spray, while it is a horrible, painful, miserable thing to have on your skin and eyes it WILL NOT STOP A MOTIVATED INDIVIDUAL. I am perfectly capable of fighting through the pain of an OC deployment for as long as I need to.

OC on your face feels like somebody just put a blow torch on your skin and rubbed broken glass into your eyes it also makes you choke from the amount of snot that starts flowing in you nose and down your throat. BUT I was able to take the spray right in the face and eyes wait 30 seconds, rush a subject holding a punch shield and strike it for 45 seconds as hard as you can, deploy a weapon simulate firing three aimed shots. Which I had to do single handed as I was forced to pry my shooting eye open with my support hand. Put the subject on the ground and cuff him.

Guy and gals DO NOT think that just because you have OC spray with you that you are safe from harm. OC spray is simply not that effective and should not be counted on as a bad guy stopper. Every time I hear a guy tell me his wife is safe because he bought her one of those key chain OC canisters I cringe. That is a seriously false sense of security.

What's really horrible about OC spray is the 2 hours after the fight that you have to sit there and suffer the effects of it. Oh and taking a shower later in the day reactivated it and flowed it down into my "nether regions" which was EXTRA special!

cardiomd

Thanks for the story -- very interesting. I'm really glad I didn't elect to get the shock.

Your claim above is not true - under certain conditions the ECD/Taser can definitely stop / fibrillate your heart. The heart is just another muscle in a way, albeit specialized... it has been demonstrated in laboratory under certain conditions:

Taser blunt probe dart-to-heart distan... [IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2008] - PubMed - NCBI

but obviously it doesn't happen too much in the field (otherwise there would be a lot of deaths.) Almost all healthy people would be ok.

However, some individuals are very susceptible to the electrical stimulation, and a few deaths have almost unquestionably been linked to tasers, and the company has even issued a warning about this although they deny a lot of involvement. The Taser company even sends representatives to our major cardiology meetings who sit in the audience and respond to posed questions and ask planted questions, and funnel "research money" to studies that agree with their agenda. It is pretty annoying how aggressive they are about promoting their idea of safety.

UCSF heart doctors uncover significant bias in Taser safety studies|UC Health

Obviously Tasers can be a safety tool and are much, much less lethal than bullets or beatings, but we still should worry about overuse by police and civilians alike if other options including nondeployment are available. It is not necessarily perfectly safe.

USMCFLYR

Maybe the people who are generally tased should worry more about THEIR behavior that leads to the possibility of being tased.

USMCFLYR

Airhoss

CMD,

You are correct,

I should have said "In most cases an ECD will not cause interference to the heart muscle."

Overall I am of the belief that ECD's save more lives than they end. The ECD allows non lethal intervention in many cases that used to be handled with lethal force options. As far as civilian use of an ECD goes I would think that in the vast majority of cases an ECD deployment saved the proposed victim from a violent encounter. If some rapist or other thug happens to die from a heart condition in the process of committing his crime I guess it just wasn't his lucky day, cry me a river.

Obviously overuse or abuse of an ECD would be a problem just like abuse or overuse of any tool designed to hurt or control people. The proper use of any weapon depends entirely on the character of it's user.

ImperialxRat

Airhoss, thanks for a great read.

Cardio, thanks for good info

cardiomd

Absolutely agreed. Of course I give quite a bit of deference to those experts "in the field," but it is very important that they are also armed (pun intended) with appropriate knowledge regarding the proper use of less lethal technology, less stuff like this happen (I was in the ER at the time this all went down, was a huge tragedy.)

Boston Red Sox - Postgame police projectile kills an Emerson student - The Boston Globe

If it was truly zero risk it could be used routinely in low risk situations, perhaps to even subdue people that are only a harm to themselves, or facilitate arrest. However it is very important for the operator to realize that it is painful, potentially dangerous, this potential for danger should significantly outweigh the risk of use. The barbs for projectile type taser should be aimed away from the heart if possible, and it really shouldn't be deployed if there is a reasonable alternative.

No problem.

Airhoss

No worries, my pleasure.