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Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Tasering of Brian Cardall Brings Out More Info On Tasering and electrophysiology

Ok, As you know I'm usually talking about the tasering of black folks on my blog Tasered While Black. But I must say incidents of tasering involving people of every group, including the tasering of seniors in the United states are rising. Take for example the recent killing of Brian Cardell who was recently tasered to death. As reported by Electronic Village, Brian Cardall, recently diagnosed with bipolar disease, was driving home from a family wedding in Salt Lake City with his wife when he became disoriented. He stopped the car and got out. His wife called 911 to request medical assistance. More HERE

Now, as reported by KCSZ TV, A Hurricane man has come forward with an eyewitness account of Tuesdays tasering incident that led to the death of 32 year old Brian Cardall.

Witness Comes Forward Following Tragic Taser Incident

Lorry Stratton, a propane service man, was traveling on SR 59 Tuesday afternoon when two hurricane officers with lights flashing passed him going up the hill.

Moments later Stratton pulled up on scene and saw Hurricane City Police Chief Lynn Excell and another Hurricane officer standing near a man who was undressed and holding his clothes in his hands. Stratton said he watched the officer say something to the man and the man took a step forward.

That is when the officer deployed his taser causing him to drop to the ground. Stratton says the man did not seem to be a threat. More HERE The police killed Cardall with 50,000 volts of electricity from their taser gun.
As Villager from the blog Electronic Village said, "Brian Cardall is the 21st person in America to die from taser-related shooting this year. Torture isn't limited to Dick Cheney. Taser-torture is occuring all over our nation."

As reported by
KSL TV, Taser International says "exposure to tasering is not risk free, but there's no conclusive evidence [it says] for a high risk of serious injury." But the death this week of a 32-year-old man who was tased by police in Washington County is again drawing questions from cardiologists who specialize in the electrophysiology of the heart.

While police have experienced tasing themselves and the manufacturer has tested the device on numerous volunteers, cardiologists still question the effects of the gun's jolt on the heart.

Dr. Brian Crandall specializes in the electrophysiology of the heart. He says making a blanket statement about a Taser's low risk when users often don't know the medical background of the person they're tasing.

Crandall said, "If someone is going to get tasered, they're not evaluating their medical history going into it, so you don't know those things in advance, so it's difficult to make any blanket statements."

Dr. Crandall says the balanced electrical rhythm of the heart can be fragile even in a normal heart, depending on what's happening at the moment inside the body.

In a heightened mental condition where anxiety is pervasive, circulating hormones and the nervous system have an impact on the heart. Crandall explained, "The heart is heavily nerved and the nervous system has a big influence on the heart and the heart rhythm."

Also, a lot depends what part of the body is targeted by the Taser user. For example, if the victim is hit in the chest. "The proximity would definitely play a role," explained Crandall. "It would hit the heart much more there than if it were at a further distance away."

Tasing is simply not a "one-for-all" answer in disabling someone.

In an officer's judgment when to use the device, The U.S. Department of Justice warns, "Abnormal mental status in a combative or resistive subject may be associated with a risk for sudden death."

Crandall said, "A sick heart is one that would be at high risk … but it can even happen in people with normal hearts that, given the right circumstances, that if the rhythm is thrown off and there is no immediate remedy to it, that it could be a life threatening situation."

Crandall says physicians know a lot about electrical currents used in medicine to restart a failing heart, but researchers need more extensive studies on the effects of tasing. More HERE

AAPP: It's clear Police training for handling mental illness cases is lacking, Clearly it's time for all Americans to join the effort to have congressional hearings on taser torture. Please consider signing the petition.




3 comments:

Excited-Delirium.com said...

"No evidence of high risk."

We're not talking about 'high risk'. We're talking about low to moderate risk; something in the low end of single digits risk of death once the taser darts happen to land on the chest.

Wanna place bets where the darts landed on Mr. Cardall? I'll bet that one dart was in the upper left quadrant of his chest. This is just a guess based on the fact that he dropped dead exactly after he was tasered.

Eventually even the most thick headed pro-taser moron will have to face the cold hard facts that sometimes tasers can kill (directly), via internal risk factors never admitted by Taser International.

TheEvilOne said...

Perhaps Police armed with tasers should also carry cardiac defibrillators and be trained in their use. Then when the taser stops the heart they might be able to restart it again. Pehaps Taser International could consider designing a combined stun gun and defibrillator.

In any case police taser training should include realistic situations where police being tasered have the probes fired into the front of their chests from a distance so the exact position of the darts is suitably randomised and should be shocked at least 5 times for a cumulative period of at least 30 seconds as was the RCMP's Polish victim in Canada.

TheEvilOne said...

It seems to me that there is an assumption being made by the proponents of the taser that the current from the device is confined to the surface of the human body. This is a ridiculous assumption, if one assumes that the normal Ohms laws of voltage current and resistance apply the current would spread out and follow multiple paths and signifigant currents may occur deep inside the body. What happens if high currents go through the heart's internal pacemaker region, could they destroy it and if so would the damage be visible in an autopsy?

But with such a high voltage the current may be causing electrical breakdown and the paths may resemble the fractal tree pattern of a lightning strike with random factors such as the coincident arrival of a shower of cosmic rays determining the exact paths on which relatively high currents flow.

The only way to test the safety or otherwise of tasers used on human beings is to do tests on human beings simulating actual use. These tests should require firing the probes from a distance with the darts landing on different places on the body, with some randomly chosen subjects dosed with alcohol, PCP, heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine or a combination of these and perhaps extra drugs to simulate attacks of acute bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. The taserings should include multiple firings of the taser with the total time of use mimicking the use where deaths have occurred.

In other words tests should be made with the intention of proving that tasers can kill rather than with the intention of proving that they cannot.