Over the course of my career as an ER nurse I have had many occa­sions to treat peo­ple who have been on the receiv­ing end of one of these. I can tell you hon­est­ly that if I was to be on the receiv­ing end I would rather be tasered than pep­per sprayed. In fact I have had to do both to be qual­i­fied to car­ry both of them while I was a tac­ti­cal medic with a SWAT team.  Here are a few rea­sons I pre­fer the Taser.

Peo­ple with res­pi­ra­to­ry issues such as Asth­ma who are pep­per sprayed will have an attack, and if severe enough will die. Once the police brought me a fel­low who was very well cov­ered in the pep­per spray. The oth­er nurse on duty with me had Asth­ma and just the scent of it in the air threw her into an attack and she went from being my co-work­er to my patient. The smell of that pep­per spray was in the air for hours after the patient was dis­charged.

Pep­per spray gen­er­al­ly has to be on tar­get in the eyes, mouth or nose to be effec­tive.

When I first came to the US I bought my wife a Taser. Every­one knew I was a gun tot­ing kin­da guy and they asked me why I bought one of those. Well here are a few rea­sons.

If my wife acci­den­tal­ly Tazed me I would get up again.

If she Tazed an intrud­er she could just drop it on the ground and run while it con­tin­ued to shock that fool for 30 sec­onds.

There was no fear of the Taser probes going through the wall and hit­ting one of the kids.

As long as the probes hit the intrud­er in any two spots on the body they will go down.

The probes are very easy to remove.

Where I was trained in the use of all man­ner of firearms my wife was not, which is real­ly fun­ny because she grew up on a farm where her dad used firearms but did not feel his daugh­ters need­ed to know how to shoot while I was raised in a house where firearms were for­bid­den.

 

Treat­ment

For pep­per spray many peo­ple are told to flush with copi­ous amounts of water. This is not the best way. The pep­per spray is gen­er­al­ly oil based and what hap­pens when you add oil to water? You are bet­ter to flush with anoth­er oil or fat based prod­uct such as milk, my pre­ferred method, or veg­etable oil and then to show­er. If there is an air­way issue then a hos­pi­tal will be required.

For the Taser all that is required is to remove the probes. They are barbed so there will be a lit­tle tis­sue dam­age when they come out.

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