Can stun guns and tasers cause death?
Danger: high voltage
By Dr Stephen Juan Published Friday 13th October 2006 12:17Â
GMT
The chance of dying after being shot by a taser or stun gun is
about one in 870. Dr William P Bozeman, professor of emergency
medicine at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, estimates this in the September 2005
issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
But Dr Bozeman acknowledges that any such estimate is based on very
little data. Tasers and stun guns have been in use for only a short
period of time and there are still few studies assessing their
various effects.
Nevertheless, medical studies suggest that more not fewer
deaths could result from the introduction of tasers and stun guns
for police work. Some doctors worry that more deaths could
occur since police may be more likely to use tasers and stun guns
on a suspect thinking they are safer than handguns.
Instead, tasers and stun guns are known to cause a suspect
to suffer cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, malfunction of
pace-makers, damaged eyes, injury to the central nervous system,
and death. The death of an innocent foetus can occur as
well as tasers and stun guns can cause a miscarriage when used on a
pregnant woman. Police would find it difficult, if not impossible
to know if a female suspect is pregnant.
According to Drs Fish and Gedess, death of a suspect can result, in
particular, if they have taken certain drugs - something that is
often the case when arrests take place. They stress that tasers and
stun guns should not be used in all ways police sometimes use them
now - but would not use handguns in those same circumstances. These
circumstances would include, for example, in the breathalysing of a
suspected traffic offender, the controlling of an unruly fan at a
sports match, or the restraining of a possible drunk and disorderly
suspect. Recent findings of other research includes:
Of 75 people who died after being shot with a taser or stun gun,
the taser was considered a potentially contributory cause of death
in 27 per cent of cases. Source: Drs J Strote and H Range Hutson
from the University of Washington Medical Centre in Seattle and
reported in the October/December 2006 issue of Prehospital
Emergency Care.
The use of cocaine boosts the shock value of a taser or stun gun by
50 to 100 per cent. Source: Ten researchers led by Dr D Lakkireddy
from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio, and
reported in the August 2006 issue of the Journal of the American
College of Cardiology.
Use of tasers and stun guns results in fewer injuries to police
compared with using clubs, dogs, or handguns to restrain suspects.
Source: Drs E Jenkinson, C Neeson, and A Bleetman from the Heart of
England NHS Foundation Trust in Solihull, United Kingdom and
reported in the July 2006 Journal of Clinical Forensic
Medicine.
What happens
to you when you are shot by a taser or stun
gun?
Tasers and stun guns are high-voltage, low-current stimulators that
can cause involuntary muscle contractions, loss of body control,
and sensations such as pain and extreme fatigue. They are used as
police weapons as a person can be immobilised without the injury or
death that would normally result from the use of a normal police
revolver.
Both tasers and stun guns produce electrical stimuli in the form of
shocks of about 50,000 volts that last for a fraction of a second.
In a taser, an electrode is shot out as a dart and impacts upon the
body. In a stun gun, the electrodes are fixed into the gun
itself.
If taser darts are shot into a standing person's thigh at 10 inches
apart and from a distance of six feet away, the leg will be locked
into a flexed position and the person will be unable to continue to
stand. If a stun gun is shot at a standing person's rib cage from a
distance of six feet away for four to five seconds, the person will
be considerably weakened and in most cases brought to their
knees.
Stephen Juan, Ph.D. is an anthropologist at the University of
Sydney.