Huntington Disease Lighthouse Families

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Tazers

Posted by Sally 
Tazers
July 07, 2008 08:05PM
I don't like starting anything on here, but I have a problem with an item mentioned on another thread.

Dusty said, "So I look faintly drunk. My dog is on a flex line, sooner or later the cops are gonna get me, and because I look drunk I'll get tazored, and with HD I will probably die.? However, right before that ?They bring up delirium extremis to account for the death. Which does not exist."

If you don't think there is anything like excited delirium, why worry about a tazer killing you as a person with HD? My husband is an RCMP officer. He would never tazer you for appearing drunk. If he thought his life was being threatened, he would make a judgment call?.tazer or gun. Which one would you rather have him use on you? ***HINT*** With a gun, he shoots to kill. Any RCMP officer who uses a tazer knows what it feels like to be tazered. In their training, they have all been through it before they are allowed to use it on anyone else. It hurts!

Sorry if I have offended anyone, however, I would rather my husband (who is a phD with no current symptoms) defend himself than not come home.
Re: Tazers
July 07, 2008 11:22PM
It's not the fault of the police but often times they mishandle people with HD as drunk and belligerent. The person is staggering and slurring and the pHD is often unaware they even do this. So they do become unreceptive to the officer,s accusations. Things escalate. Being an officers wife you may be more understanding to some other officer who in the future mistakes your husband's condition and mishandles him. What do you think the chances are he will tolerate an officer after he retires trying to drag him into jail for drunk and disorderly...is he going to go in easily? There is good reason why pHDs can become weary of the police. They are only trained one way to handle things and it is with force if they don't know better. My wife had three episodes with the police and never could explain herself properly to the officer under the stress. No violent episodes in her case but it was a small town and I could be gotten hold of. In a larger city it probably would have been different. It has been different for others. Dusty taking a tazer shot would be a sad thing. I doubt it would happen...but it would be sad. Or her being tackled or anything else. It's also quite unlikely that Dusty at her worst would prevent your husband from coming home. He might have a shiner tho.
Re: Tazers
July 08, 2008 03:01AM
I have to agree with Eric in regards to tazers and Dusty. I am a non-gun or taser person myself.

Sally what stunned me when I read your post was that your husband has HD, however he is still an active RCMP officer and has access to firearms and tasers??? Something is wrong with that I am sorry. He should re-consider his position and possibly do desk work instead, that is my recommendation and the logical thing to do.
Re: Tazers
July 08, 2008 09:35AM
HOLD on here everyone, Sally has said that her husband is not symptomatic... I have to guess that she also means mentally not just physically. We cannot support people to test and then when they DO bravely test and may come up with a low enough count to continue a high stress job and then fault them for continuing that job can we?

My husband is a paramedic and has attended to tazered people, only one of whom died at the scene, he was extremely strung out on meth and other drugs and causing traffic problems by running into traffic on a busy highway, people could have been hurt. Should the cops have tackeled him in traffic? Shot him? They did the right thing and a court of law also decided they did the right thing.

I'm not so sure that a Phd would react so terribly to being tazed, nor do I think a Phd WOULD necessarily be tazed any more than anyone else. Also all our loved ones with HD should be carrying that ID card that explains the symptoms so they can be handed over to the police along with ID.

BTW, my husband has witnessed police tazing themselves during training, that's part of the paramedics job also.. witnessing the tazing and how to handle it afterwards. He felt they were incredibly brave to alow themsevles to be tazed like that and knows that after that the police would truly understand it's only to be used when absolutly necessary. Pat
db
Re: Tazers
July 08, 2008 10:39AM
Sally , could I ask you on a ? on a different topic ? Was there no automatic car driving restrictions . I have someone in mind I am thinking about . PM me if you feel more comfortable . My best. db
Re: Tazers
July 08, 2008 01:31PM
I didn't question his ability to do his job. But yes... social responsibility should be considered. It may not be mandated by law but just like driving or any other potentially dangerous social activity it is perfectly correct to weight the pros and cons. There is a fine line between symptomatic and not. And no offense but family doesn't always hop on the symptomatic band wagon too easily and judge that correctly. In a job like that it could be better to think ahead, and be ahead of symptoms rather than behind them. It would be bad if obvious symptoms first appeared in a poor judgment in that particular job. I am sure Sally and her husband have thought of this. Having let T drive too long it was the by the grace of God that she didn't kill someone. And no drama attached to that...it's a simple fact...I was wrong in my judgments.
Re: Tazers
July 08, 2008 01:37PM
I think they should get rid of tazers and just shoot them.

Tazers make them think they can get away with it and live.
Re: Tazers
July 08, 2008 02:08PM
There ya go again Fred eye popping smileyMy two cents
Re: Tazers
July 08, 2008 08:04PM
Thanks for the support Fred and Pat.

To answer some questions about my husband and his position at work. The RCMP have taken his medical condition seriously and so has my husband. When he tested positive, he voluntarily went off work for 1.5 years so they could put him thru some major testing to make sure he was still VERY capable of doing his job. He sees two specialist on a regular basis...one once a month and the other once every six years. The RCMP has brought in specialists that deal with HD on a regular basis. They do not want to be held responsible if my husband goes "crazy" at work. He is only 35. Should he be expected to leave his position now when his CAG count is only 43? Every year my husband has to qualify to use his gun and tasor, just like any regular member of the RCMP. However, on top of that, they send him for extra tactical training to see how he will respond in an emergency situation. As far as his driving goes, as long as he can still past the other tests, driving is considered a "minor" thing. In addition, he gave up a position he loved because he was in a residential posting (meaning he was the only member in the area and our house was the office) because he wanted to be able to pull himself out of a situation IF he felt he could not handle it safely.

I agree with Fred. If you don't want the RCMP using tasors, the next step is to get rid of them and use their guns. Is that what you want?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2008 05:30PM by Sally.
Re: Tazers
July 08, 2008 10:39PM
My drivers license was pulled with my HD probable diagnosis by my neuro at McMaster..I kept my license for ID purposes and have renewed it twice, but I have not driven a car since then. My mother (HD probable age 39) was not capab;e of keeping her foot constant on the acclerator. Dad would shout at her saying "Keep your foot still Your wearing out the car."
I was also doing the foot movement in my 40's long before I realized I had HD, which my children commented on.
Failing other forms of driving assessment, I think the floppy foot symptom is a good indicator that your driver and gun and tazor days are finished.
I represent a different time in HD where we carried on as long as possible. With a new group of HD + asymptomatic, hopefully at some point more of the finer details will be more known.
Dusty
Re: Tazers
July 09, 2008 05:53AM
His neuro tests his foot movements once every six months. He is not showing any. He is still more than capable in the doctors opinion. On most of his tests, he scored higher than the average person would.
Re: Tazers
July 09, 2008 04:35PM
Check this headline -

Dad Uses Toddler As Shield Against Cop's Taser

[cbs2chicago.com]
Re: Tazers
July 09, 2008 06:31PM
What does this article have to do with anything? I don't get it except it has the word taser in it.
Re: Tazers
July 09, 2008 06:45PM
Does it have to have something to do with what we are talking about?
Re: Tazers
July 09, 2008 07:18PM
I agree with Eric, that story has no real point to it other than the guy holding his daughter up is pathetic. Taser or gun it wouldn't matter to people like him.

Anyway on the thread subject I don't see a problem with your hubby working as a cop still. Just because he's been given the bad result doesn't mean he should act like he's symptomatic all his life until the day he actually is symptomatic. He sounds like a sensable bloke anyway.

As for the part about tasers being used on people with Hd. I can't really comment as I'm a brit and our cops dont carry either gun or taser. Also the american police always seem to be portrayed as heavy handed. Our force here in the Uk are different so that scenario wouldn't happen.

[www.hdyo.org]
Re: Tazers
July 09, 2008 09:23PM
[www.cbc.ca]

the only people who are happy about tasers in Casnada is the RCMP and they are going to have more control or get banned.
Re: Tazers
July 09, 2008 09:28PM
Eric, It was a TANGENT. We do that sometimes.

There are some issues here that I think we are overlooking. Sally has a husband that is genepositive and aysmptomatic. His job is a cop. I wonder why the RCMP Know is because the Canadian Medical system must report to the government if one of their own has this? Or did he give up the information? That's interesting. It's a privacy issue.

This is something we should examine. Sally why do you say " Every year my husband has to qualify to use his gun and tasor, just like any regular member of the RCMP. "

Isn't he a "regular member" of the RCMP now? The way you said it makes him sound "special". I have said before that no one should be made aware of these situations with employers until it comes to the point of termination or disability.

You can bet at 35, in the prime of his life, this will hang over him and keep him from advancing. After all, why would they promote him over people they know they can count on for the next 25 to 30 years? This will be a mark against him every time. He's "special".

I applaud his social responisiblity for being open, if that is what happened, but I have to feel sorry for him because of this "black mark" he now has to carry.

I have said on this forum before that being open about this is not a good thing with employers and others. It just makes them suspicious. You can educate all you want, but it will just make people open space for you.

Maybe a bad comparison, but I have personally witnessed a person spray with lysol when someone they knew had aids used their phone. When I told her that you can't get aids that way, and the response was "never can tell".

No amount of education will stop that.

The second issue I guess we are "dealing" with is if someone with HD could tolerate a tazer shock. Juging by my wife, who other than the HD is pretty healthy, yep. I'd say they would have pretty much the same reaction as the "normies" have.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/2008 09:30PM by Fred.
Re: Tazers
July 09, 2008 10:45PM
Maybe we could taser the HD mice and see if they lived or were cured...
dusty
HD brains are the delicate broken part. My mother had electro shock and never recovered. Why do you think electric energy from a tazer is safer than what ended my mother's limited intellectual abilities.
I'm prety sure being tazered would fry my new hearing aids which cost about $6000. Do the police have a fund to replace hearing aids immediately, have they even discussed deaf and hard of hearing people who don't hear them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/2008 10:57PM by dustyblues.
Re: Tazers
July 10, 2008 08:32AM
Depends on what you did to make them mad Dusty.

In all my tazer tests, cats did the best.
Re: Tazers
July 10, 2008 09:50AM
AGAIN people, tazers are used ONLY if a person is at risk of HARMING someone, themselves, or causing an accident, as in the case I reported earlier with my paramedic husband. This man was screaming and yelling and running in and out of traffic on a major busy hwy, when he got out of the road one time, they tazed him rather than shot him.

The general consecense now, which I agree with, is to have the least amount of people harmed, which is why you don't hear of police tackling much anymore. You don't know if there is a hidden weapon.

I'm thinking that MOST of our Phd's who may be stopped for walking with an HD gait would never be in danger of being tazed. When you hand over your ID also hand over the explanation about HD and symptoms. This is especially important if speech is effected. Let's say none of this works, Let's say the officer says, you need to come to the precinct to be question.... GOOOOOOOOOOO... GO, calmly, politely, call a friend or loved one, then sue their ass! Just cooperate cooperate cooperate~ that is the key. Pat Rose
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