tasers and less than lethal TX
Having spent 7+ years with a SWAT team as a Tactical-Paramedic before coming back to the sandbox, I went through all the training involved with these tools. Up to an including being "Tazed" myself, in fact, that was my surprise birthday present at training 1 day.
Just a few notes on these "less than lethal" items-
Tazer, cannot cause cardiac arrest, if you imagine a phone line with 2 people talking on it, and someone picks up a phone in the middle and yells on it so both
people on either end can't hear each other, is basically how it works. The message between the brain and the muscles gets bombarded by "white noise" basically by the electrical impulse. Just enough to tighten skeletal muscle with no other damage. The few exceptions to this rule are when the barbs get lodged in places they aren't supposed to. In a few cases, i've seen barbs stuck in the eye, or the best was one that stuck in the "tip of the penis" on a bad guy who was combative. The police still let him ride the lightening (gential hit that is), hahaha. Barb removal is fairly simple if youve ever used the "retraction method" for a fishhook (keep in mind, these barbs are much smaller). A medical assessment and evaluation should be performed if the patient has FALLEN post-taze though, just as a CYA for head/neck trauma etc.
"Rubber batons" fired from a SL-1/SL-6 (40mm). These are designed to skip across the ground and hit the legs, normally good for riot situations. Keep in mind a direct hit to the chest/head can be fatal. There have been documented cases #1. where a rubber baton penetrated the abdominal cavity and ended up in the chest of a guy. #2. another was where the baton became lodged in the orbit of an assailant. Keep in mind, these were not skip shots, but direct hits, due to improper use of the tool.
Pepper spray:--baby shampoo works good, on the EMS side of things if you are looking at a gross decon, the cheapest, most effective neutralizing agent I found ( 40+ people) was plain old baking soda and water. This is great, cause all you need is some buckets, hospital sheets can be torn into makeshift rags, and it works fairly quickly. Not a bad idea to have in a couple rapid deployment boxes. My old SWAT unit was in charge of training the new police recruits on several different aspects of the field. As medics we tried many different "agents" for decon in a CS/pepper/tear gas spray exposures on the new recruits. Some myths we found:
Baby wipes: made the burn sting worse, the aloe seemed to open the bodies pores more sealing in the effective agent.
sudocon wipes: $$pricey, work ok if they are fresh, if they've been sitting for a while, tend to dry out in the foil pack (ever grab an alcohol swap and it was dry?), they didnt help me out at all.
Water-works great in copious amounts (read here, a garden hose). I think its a shame that EMS gets called in to flush eyes out using up multiple bottles of sterile water or saline. Lets keep those for burns, or clearing out our suction tubing........
Endnote- The police are consistent, if you act like a donkey, your gonna get treated like an animal. I have very little sympathy for people crying because they got "peppered", they usually did something to deserve it. Unless theres a major anaphylaxis/resp event going on, let them ride it out (personal opinion).
Treat any of the other "rubber pellet" items ( ie. stingball)like you would the rubber baton. Be especially wary of facial, throat, airway compromise.As of yet, i have yet to hear of a cardiac/pulmonary contusion, cardiac tamponade, or PTX due to employment of these items (if you know of one please let me know !!!!)
Anyway, sorry for the long post, I just wanted to offer some info I had, hope this helps someone out.--
h34r:
Thanks
^_^