NJEMT said:
Just a quick question for LEOs and EMTs out there. I live in NJ so police do not carry tasers, but in my town we have the Edison Historic Site which is run by the National Park Service. It is federal land patroled by NPS park rangers so they can carry tasers. Now here is the question. If they were to taser someone and the prongs of the taser were still in the person can I as an EMT remove them or do they have to go to the hospital to be removed? Also do all people that have been tased go to the hospital for an eval? My squad is trying to come up with protocols for this, it has not happened yet but we want to be prepared.
I am a Paramedic, and a (taser certified) Police officer... So I think I'm in a good position to answer your question.
But of course my experience is only with my state's protocols.
From the police side:
In training we all get tased, and we just remove the barbs outselves and laugh it off. The closest we come to a medical eval is the trip to the bar after certification.
That said, many pd's in an effort to reduce liability, have written into their policies that any tased suspect will be evaluated by
EMS either emmediately or back at the station. They figure they will just pass the responsibility off to the ambulance crew to make sure the person won't die in custody.
Of course the buck-passing doesn't stop there. Because our State Office of
EMS wants services to pass the liability off to a physician, our protocols state that taser barbs are "impaled objects" and therefore can not be removed by
EMS in the field, and therefore the individual must be transported to an ED.
This produces a lot of consternation for the poor officer who learns he will be babysitting his prisoner at the hospital for the rest of the night.
(not to mention the state feels the tasering is essentially an "electrocution" emergency, and thus the pt should be placed on a cardiac monitor)
Basically, my advice for you is this:
First and foremost, find out what your state/protocols say. It may be that your trouble ends there.
If there is no specific information regarding it, get your information and data ready and make a visit to whomever your medical director is and ask him/her how they would like you to handle the situation.
If you don't have a medical director, research what the specific company of taser (probably Taser International) says about post-taser usage and monitoring.
Take all the above information, and formulate a policy for your department with your service's chief / admin / supervisors.
Then talk to the NPS rangers about what you have drafted (or required to do). Make sure you and them are both clear on your expectations and requirements. And you both understand where each one stands.
In the end it may come down to a scenario like this:
Cops taser bad guy. If barbs happen to "fall out" during the arrest, (or are removed by PD), and the suspect is not complaining of anything, and the officer doesn't observe anything weird (as they were taught during certification) than
EMS is not called and booking continues as normal.
If barbs remain in the suspect, and therefore
EMS is called, the pt will be transported to the hospital, since
EMS is not allowed to remove them.
::Or::
You are allowed as an
EMS agency to remove the barbs, which you would do.
If the barbs are removed, all normal eval/transport/refusal rules stand (for a person in PD custody) for
EMS on scene.
In the very least, figure out what your rules/regulations are, and then set up a meeting with the NPS guys and discuss it with them (and find out what their rules are). You may very well find out that they will just remove barbs themselves and only call you if there are "real" symptoms.
This has been my experience. YMMV
