Citation

Sun H, Haemmerich D, Rahko PS, Webster JG. J. Med. Eng. Technol. 2010; 34(3): 178-191.

Affiliation

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 1415 Engineering Drive, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.3109/03091900903509149

PMID

20064078

Abstract

This paper describes the first methodology and results for estimating the order of probability for Tasers directly causing human ventricular fibrillation (VF). The probability of an X26 Taser causing human VF was estimated using: (1) current density near the human heart estimated by using 3D finite-element (FE) models; (2) prior data of the maximum dart-to-heart distances that caused VF in pigs; (3) minimum skin-to-heart distances measured in erect humans by echocardiography; and (4) dart landing distribution estimated from police reports. The estimated mean probability of human VF was 0.001 for data from a pig having a chest wall resected to the ribs and 0.000006 for data from a pig with no resection when inserting a blunt probe. The VF probability for a given dart location decreased with the dart-to-heart horizontal distance (radius) on the skin surface.

Language: en