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Prolonged Electro‐muscular Incapacitation in a Porcine Model Causes Spinal Injury
Author(s) -
Burns Jennie M.,
Kamykowski Michael G.,
Moreno Justin A.,
Jirjis Michael B.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of forensic sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.715
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4029
pISSN - 0022-1198
DOI - 10.1111/1556-4029.14177
Subject(s) - medicine , lumbosacral joint , stimulation , animal model , spinal injury , poison control , anesthesia , physical medicine and rehabilitation , surgery , spinal cord injury , spinal cord , emergency medicine , psychiatry
Conducted electrical weapons are designed to cause temporary electro‐muscular incapacitation ( EMI ) without significant injury. The objective of this study was to assess the risk and cause of spinal injury due to exposure to a benchtop EMI device. Porcine subjects were exposed to 19 and 40 Hz electrical stimuli for a prolonged duration of 30 sec. X‐ray imaging, necropsy, and accelerometry found that lumbosacral spinal fractures occurred in at least 89% of all subjects, regardless of the stimulus group, and were likely caused by musculoskeletal fatigue‐related stress in the lumbosacral spine. Spinal fractures occurred in the porcine model at an unusually high rate compared to human. This may be due to both the prolonged duration of electrical stimulation and significant musculoskeletal differences between humans and pigs, which suggests that the porcine model is not a good model of EMI ‐induced spinal fracture in humans.