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Dart-to-Heart Distance when Taser® Causes Ventricular Fibrillation in Pigs

  • Conference paper
3rd Kuala Lumpur International Conference on Biomedical Engineering 2006

Part of the book series: IFMBE Proceedings ((IFMBE,volume 15))

Abstract

Electromuscular incapacitating devices (EMDs), such as Tasers, deliver high current, short duration pulses that cause muscular contractions and temporarily incapacitate the human subject. Some reports suggest that EMDs can kill. To help answer the question, “Can the EMD directly cause ventricular fibrillation (VF)?,” ten tests were conducted to measure the dart-to-heart distance that causes VF in anesthetized pigs (mass = 64 kg ± 6.67 (SD)) for the most common X26 Taser. The dart-to-heart distance that caused VF was 17 mm ± 6.48 (SD) for the first VF event and 13.7 mm ± 6.79 (SD) for the average of the successive VF events. The result shows that when the stimulation dart is close enough to the heart, X26 Taser current will directly trigger VF in pigs. Echocardiography of erect humans shows skin-to-heart distances from 10 to 57 mm (dart-to-heart distances of 1 to 48 mm). These results suggest that the probability of a dart on the body landing in 1 cm2 over the ventricle and causing VF is 0.000172.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Jiun-Yan Wu & Hongyu Sun

  2. Department of Surgery, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53792, USA

    Ann P. O’Rourke

  3. Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Shane Huebner

  4. Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53792, USA

    Peter S. Rahko

  5. Department of Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences and the Department of Animal Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Jiun-Yan Wu & James A. Will

  6. Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    John G. Webster

Authors
  1. Jiun-Yan Wu
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  2. Hongyu Sun
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  3. Ann P. O’Rourke
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  4. Shane Huebner
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  5. Peter S. Rahko
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  6. James A. Will
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  7. John G. Webster
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Fatimah Ibrahim , Noor Azuan Abu Osman , Juliana Usman  & Nahrizul Adib Kadri , ,  & 

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© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Wu, JY. et al. (2007). Dart-to-Heart Distance when Taser® Causes Ventricular Fibrillation in Pigs. In: Ibrahim, F., Osman, N.A.A., Usman, J., Kadri, N.A. (eds) 3rd Kuala Lumpur International Conference on Biomedical Engineering 2006. IFMBE Proceedings, vol 15. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68017-8_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68017-8_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-68016-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-68017-8

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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