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Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

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Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#191

Post by sesuximo »

jdietrich wrote: post #42
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #13

Setting aside the fact that this kind of thing happens at all: How is ketamine the drug of choice?! Although it has a very high active dose:fatal dose (alluded to in other comments), accepted practice for "chemical restraint" is Thorazine+Valium (or equivalent); ketamine is basically never used for behavioral "sedation" by any medical professional.

The use of chemical restraint in a law enforcement setting is an appalling breach of human rights, but ketamine is by far the safest option in an out-of-hospital setting, especially when you don't have any sort of patient history. I'm sure that someone has been killed by a single clinical dose of ketamine, but I'm not sure how. Ketamine isn't a very good chemical cosh, but at least it's a safe one. Anyone administeri…

It’s a candidate for safest only if it’s being used where required by a trained administrator. And those two factors probably outweigh the choice of drug in their effect on lethality.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#192

Post by dj_gitmo »

JRKrause wrote: post #179

Tangentially related, ketamine was what they dosed the kids stuck in the cave with prior to dragging them out last year.

Fascinating. The end of the CNN article about this is incredible:

> Richard Harris, the Australian anesthesiologist, was one of only two cave-diving anesthesiologists in the world. "I didn't think it would work at all," Harris told National Geographic. "I expected the first two kids to drown and then we'd have to do something different. I put their odds of survival at zero."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/04/health/thailand-boys-cave-ket...

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#193

Post by jhardy54 »

bsanr2 wrote: post #146
dirtnugget wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering how one could be so bad at estimating weight. But yes, it’s a lot.

The uncomfortable truth is that authorities regularly misidentify black men as being bigger/taller/older/darker than they actually are. Whether that's an issue specific to police indoctrination or to American culture in general, it's clearly part of what happened here. Apologies to the HN users who will be incensed at the notion of race playing a role in this situation.

> Apologies to the HN users who will be incensed at the notion of race playing a role in this situation.

No apologies necessary, receiving a dose of reality is good for them.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#194

Post by projektfu »

nerdbaggy wrote: post #44
axaxs wrote: post #3

Why are we injecting people during arrests, which by definition are not yet guilty people? Even if nobody had died, this is absurd.

There are some good uses cases . You arrive on scene and the patient is injured and agitated and lashing out. EMT is having a hard time as well. You need to give them something. Basically Benzos or Ketamine, and Ketamine is much safer and can relieve pain

I always had the impression that emergency departments used haloperidol or chlorpromazine because they don't cause increased intracranial pressure like ketamine nor respiratory depression like benzodiazepines. I'm sure it varies for individual experience.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#195

Post by TeaDrunk »

hansvm wrote: post #186
mortehu wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are resisting arrest, you may still be presumed innocent of the original crime. However you're almost certainly guilty of resisting lawful arrest, which is usually a misdemeanor. There's no exemption that allows innocent people to resist lawful arrest. This is not to say that injection sounds like a great solution for everyday arrests.

> There's no exemption that allows innocent people to resist lawful arrest. It's a bit murkier than that in the US. In some states you can't even resist unlawful arrest, but in all states you're allowed to defend yourself against _excessive_ force. In practice that's probably a bad idea, but if you survive the retaliation from somebody who's armed and who has already proven themselves prone to excessive use of force…

It says that on the books that you’re allowed to defend against excessive force, but they’ll still charge you for assault for bleeding on their uniform. (And then only retract this when the media outcry becomes too difficult to ignore.)

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#196

Post by FpUser »

tmp538394722 wrote: post #178
wittyreference wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> powerful animal tranquilizer on a human being just to make some cops' job "easier" You’re waxing hyperbolic. It’s a sedative drug used in normal human clinical practice, and in many settings is preferable because it has -fewer- risks of complications than other sedatives. And while I’m highly critical of it’s being used without strict medical protocol, I’ve worked psych ED enough to understand that there are occasi…

Elijah McClain was not “ridiculously agitated”. The video shows that police escalated every chance they got. After receiving a phone call of a “suspicious person” they went from in their car to hands on Elijah in less than 10s. In a matter of minutes Elijah was on the ground surrounded by a dozen officers. They’re saying “was he suspected of anything”, “why are we here”? They don’t even know why they’re there... but…

They're plain fucking murderers and should rot in jail. That is all about it. It is just too bad that the land of free telling every other country how to behave does not seem to give a flying fuck about the egregious behavior of their own agents. Well not unless the case gets much publicity on FB and the likes.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#199

Post by dkersten »

tehwebguy wrote: post #158

Police should never be permitted to direct medical professionals to do anything to a person in their custody unless it is to save their life. Medical professionals should be hyper-trained on how to tell police “hell no” and to report their requests to an independent agency for investigation. There are other types of scenarios where out of control cops bully doctors and nurses into doing illegal things, two that I hav…

Agreed. Police should have less powers, not more.

Re: Ketamine that's injected during arrests draws new scrutiny

#200

Post by lsllc »

tehwebguy wrote: post #158

Police should never be permitted to direct medical professionals to do anything to a person in their custody unless it is to save their life. Medical professionals should be hyper-trained on how to tell police “hell no” and to report their requests to an independent agency for investigation. There are other types of scenarios where out of control cops bully doctors and nurses into doing illegal things, two that I hav…

Medical professionals do refuse! If you remember Alex Wubbels a nurse who refused to do a blood draw stating that she would not unless the patient was under arrest, a warrant had been issued or the patient had consented.

She was arrested, although not charged and was later apologized to. The cop was fired and it also lead to Utah changing its blood draw laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_University_of_Utah_Hospit...

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