How to Survive a Taser

4 min read

Two small darts pierce your skin, and you immediately lose control of your body. As 50,000 volts of electric current courses through you, pain shoots up your back, and your brain feels like it’s shaking against your skull. If you could grab those two wires, maybe you could remove the darts from your body. Or perhaps you’d make things worse.

A study in 2012 found over 500 deaths due to Tasers used by law enforcement officers in the U.S. Many of these deaths were associated with medical conditions like heart disease. Now, people are questioning the use of Tasers. Why are they called tasers? What kind of clothes can save your life? And how could doing drugs protect you?

Taser is an acronym for the Tom A. Swift Electric Rifle. Jack Cover invented it in the mid-1970s, and he loved books about the character Tom Swift, another inventor of gadgets. During the 1990s, the Taser was suggesteded as an alternative to firearms. The general principles of escalation for law enforcement officers included verbal control, hand control and handcuffs. Then, if needed, officers could use mace, batons and firearms. The Taser was expected to fit between batons and firearms.

After several lawsuits and calls to control the use of Tasers, special cameras are attached to Tasers. What should you do if you find yourself at the wrong end of this weapon?

Step 1. Wear the right clothes

Believe it or not, your clothes can modify a Taser’s effects. Wearing clothes containing carbon fiber tape can help protect you from the weapon’s electric shock. Because carbon fiber conducts electricity so well, it forces the current to pass through it instead of into your body.

Step 2. Run

You could run away from or toward your attacker. This is because staying 11 m (35 ft) away will keep you out of reach of the Taser’s electric wires. Running in a zigzag pattern may help too. If you run toward your attacker, you will still be hit. But the prongs will stick closer together. You will still feel the shock, but it may not incapacitate you. And you may be able to break the wires.

Step 3. Break the wires

If you get hit by a Taser, you might be able to break the wire. It will be hard, and intensely painful, with 50,000 volts running through your body. But if you can, move your arms in a sweeping motion across the wires to break them. If you get shot in the back, try rolling around to break the wires. Be careful as the prongs will be in your back, and rolling on them may cause more damage to you.

Step 4. Tend to Your Wounds

After being tased, you’ll need to keep your wound clean. The barbs in the Taser are like tiny fish hooks. And you could have severe damage to your body, especially if you got hit near your eyes. After the electric current passes through your body, you may have muscle pain and burns. You can treat these with heat, ice and over-the-counter painkillers.

Willpower alone can’t overcome a Taser’s effects. Marines can’t resist the voltage, and they’re trained for it. Your best chance of surviving is to avoid being hit or protect yourself before getting hit. Thankfully, few people die from Tasers. But there are related risks. For example, having a heart condition could decrease your survival chances.

While we don’t endorse drug use, it is interesting to note that animal studies show cocaine and methamphetamine can affect Tasers’ effectiveness. In humans, these drugs give a sense of invincibility. But there are no human clinical studies on this subject. So how the drugs might affect tased humans is still just a hypothesis.

You sustained some serious wounds from this attack. But be thankful that you weren’t hurt by a more powerful weapon, like a gun. Do you know how many people die from bullet wounds every day?