False claims that an electrocution death is necessarily instant

Taser International minions have repeatedly claimed that death by simple (high power) electrocution is necessarily instantaneous. They use this argument to try to excuse themselves from any taser-associated death where the death was delayed by any noticeable amount of time.

I'm sure that death by simple electrocution often is instantaneous.

But not always...

"At approximately 8:40 PM on Monday, October 12, [three people] were putting up an antenna at night when they lost control of the antenna and it crashed into nearby overhead power lines. The impact sent 13,000 volts of electricity through the pole the three were holding. One was pronounced dead at the scene. When paramedics arrived, the other two were not breathing; rescue crews immediately tried to resuscitate them. They were transported to a hospital where they later died." [LINK] [LINK]

[My condolences to the family and friends. It's a horrific accident.]

To prove a claim false requires only a single counter-example. This is at least the second such incident that I've reported on this blog.

This post is NOT intended to compare being tasered to contacting a power line. Although the taser open circuit peak voltage is 50,000 volts, and the power line in this report is 13,000 volts, that's not the issue. The power line is much higher power than the taser. The only point of this post is to provide yet another counter example which indicates that things are perhaps not as simple as the some "experts" might think.

Death by electrocution, even in the simplest case, need not necessarily be instantaneous. The situation with the taser can only be more subtle and more complicated.

The existence of a time delay between being tasered and being dead provides only a very weak argument against causality. It can certainly be considered (fair is fair), but it certainly should not be weighted very highly.


And those "experts" using the argument described above, and not acknowledging the exceptions, should have their entire "expert" testimony discounted as being obviously not being from an informed friend of the court.