TWO different tazerings, if that's a word, in the SAME shift.
Patient #1: A 33 year old male, upstanding citizen, allegedly high on PCP was attempting to steal a car. The police quickly got involved and tried to arrest him. But the PCP gave him superhuman strength. After EIGHT police officers could not contain him, they tazered him. One tazer, no response and he kept coming. Second tazer, no response and he kept coming. Third tazer, and he dropped dead.
He was brought to me as a full cardiopulmonary arrest. There was no saving him. The combination of the catecholamine surge from the drugs and the tazers was too much for his hear. And of course his family is making a huge deal about it and wants to sue the police. In my opinion, they should of just shot him.
Patient # 2: Same night about 4 hours later a 37 year old male was admitted for altered mental status and DKA. He was in full alcohol withdrawal, but also his metabolic system was also in terror from the DKA. He had a foley in place to monitor his urine output. He was on tons of fluids and insulin for the DKA, but he was also on an ativan drip for his agitation and alcohol withdrawal.
Eventually he became too hard to control as well. As I was ordering more sedation, or hospital police showed up. Problem is....there is no reasoning with an altered person from drugs or alcohol.
The patient ran out of the room naked into the halls, RIPPED out his foley and started attacking the police with it!! So the police tazered him in the middle of the ER. It was awesome.
-ER Doc
12 comments:
I think police officers get a little 'trigger happy' with the tazers - just from what I've seen with people I've known and grannies being tazered on Youtube.
The point of a tazer is to be a non-lethal way of apprehending a suspect. So, you're right. I guess they should have just shot him.
LMFAO!!
Why can't I get anything exciting like that in the lab?!?!
So this is like the "ups" and "downs"of tazering? Oh my goodness. Things I miss working in LTC......
I do think tazers are used a wee bit inapppriately.
Tazers are the hands down safest way to restrain a person that does not respond to verbal commands. The only area of debate is whether the person needs to physically controlled at all.
But if you are gang-tackled their is sig. risk of injury to you or the cops. If they use the baton there will be sig. contusions at a minimum. If they shoot you there will clearly be sig. injury and/or death. Tazering has an extremly low risk of causing sig. harm.
As I said, only debateable point is if physical restraint was warrented in some cases.
tazering is for the most part safe. the problem is when people have a ton of stimulants in their body from drugs (like pcp or coke), the shock can be too much and cause sudden cardiac death. it has happened many times
i believe the police taze with the best of intentions. maube there should be a rule that if you taze once and the guy keeps on coming, you should pull out the real gun. if they have that much strength from the drugs, then tazing just insnt going to have a good outcome
er doc
Forget the tazer, the dude ripped out his own (inflated) Foley and then started beating the police with it? That's badass. He'll be feeling that one in the morning...
Wow - reading your stories takes me back to residency in da hood...
It was "awesome"?
A lot of times people come to the psych ER because police think they're psych patients but they're high on something. Usually some combo of Haldol or Thorazine plus a benzo will restrain anyone aggressive b/c of coke, speed, etc. But not PCP. I swear that a guy high on the stuff could lift a car as easy as baby Superman. PCP is a helluva drug.
-Psych Doc
There is a very, very, VERY easy way to avoid being tasered: Don't do drugs that may cause you do stupid, unlawful things in public.
Wait, sorry, did I actually expect people to use a logical thought process to avoid making bad decsions?
Wow. In the first case, the gun probably would really have been better. I wonder if the cops are even aware of the risky combination of tazers and drugs like that?
Super late to jump on the comments, but the cops I know here have to GET tazered once a year so they aren't as trigger happy with the juice. They all think carefully before pulling any weapon solely due to the amount of paperwork that needs to be filled out afterward.
That being said, I wish we could carry tazers in the ED. There's a surgical attending I'd LOVE to accidentally taze.
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