It has been suggested that someone, somewhere might question the assumption that it’s an excellent idea to taser a pregnant police officer,and that someone—perhaps someone else—might question the assumption that it’s an excellent idea to taser a methamphetamine-intoxicated sheep.
These two studies investigate those possibly related questions:
“The Pregnant Officer,” Fabrice Czarnecki [pictured here], Clinics In Occupational and Environmental Medicine, vol. 3, no. 3, August 2003, pp. 641-648. The author, who “is the Director of Medical-Legal Research with The Gables Group, Inc., a business intelligence and investigative consultancy based in Miami, FL, and the Director of Training of the Center for Homeland Security Studies, a non-profit corporation conducting training in counter-terrorism and intelligence for domestic law enforcement,” explains:
“The taser is an electrical restraint device that is used in law enforcement. It is common for officers to have the taser applied to themselves during training…. Pregnant officers should not be subjected to the taser…”
and
“Effect of an Electronic Control Device Exposure on a Methamphetamine-intoxicated Animal Model,” Donald M. Dawes MD, Jeffrey D. Ho MD, Jon B. Cole MD, Robert F. Reardon MD, Erik J. Lundin MS, Karen S. Terwey MD, Dan G. Falvey, James R. Miner MD, Academic Emergency Medicine, Volume 17, Issue 4, pages 436–443, April 2010. (Thanks to investigator Ivan Oransky for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at University of Louisville, KY; and Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis, MN, explain:
“Sixteen anesthetized Dorset sheep (26–78 kg) received 0.0 mg/kg (control animals, n = 4), 0.5 mg/kg (n = 4), 1.0 mg/kg (n = 4), or 1.5 mg/kg (n = 4) of methamphetamine hydrochloride as a slow intravenous (IV) bolus during continuous cardiac monitoring. The animals received the following exposures in sequence from a TASER X26 ECD beginning at 30 minutes after the administration of the drug: 1) 5-second continuous exposure, 2) 15-second intermittent exposure, 3) 30-second intermittent exposure, and 4) 40-second intermittent exposure. Darts were inserted at the sternal notch and the cardiac apex, to a depth of 9 mm.”