Public Safety committee  In the mid-nineties there was a great deal of interest in what was called restraint asphyxia, or positional asphyxia, associated with the hog-tied position or associated with the piling on that Dr. Dowling alluded to earlier. A series of deaths were published in academic journals, journals of forensic science, that I'm sure my colleague remembers.

Public Safety committee  Again, it's beyond my expertise to comment on where the taser ought to be applied in the use of force continuum, but it would seem to me, just to take something that Dr. Dowling said, that the risk and benefit have to be compared. I don't think it can be said this is a device that has no risk.

Public Safety committee  It's vastly more predominant.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely. You couldn't allow the public to be at risk, for example, with someone rampaging. They'd need to be contained, clearly, but could you establish a secure perimeter? In other words, if the individual is harming himself or herself--mostly himself--if that happens, then you've got to move in.

Public Safety committee  I look like a police officer too. It doesn't hurt on a Saturday night in the emergency department.

Public Safety committee  That's true.

Public Safety committee  Could I control a person in the throes of excited delirium by myself? No, I couldn't, even in my prime. The strength, agitation, and the aggressiveness of some of these individuals is something that can only be believed if one experiences it, as you know, and it's a very frightening and challenging experience to be faced with.

Public Safety committee  That's correct.

Public Safety committee  I can't say it much better than that.

Public Safety committee  No, I'm sorry. That's very--

Public Safety committee  Yes, you did. That's an Ontario case. The Otto Vass inquest was an inquest into the death of a man who was psychiatrically ill, who presented in an excited delirium state and who required subduing. It was very much the same kind of piling on situation in which a number of officers were involved.

Public Safety committee  I have.

Public Safety committee  I would say that in my experience that has not happened. Two things happen. Occasionally even the most psychotic patient, when confronted with a significant show of force, will capitulate. That does happen. So if you walk into the room with a sufficient number of health care personnel--orderlies, nurses and doctors--and say, “We have to give you an injection.

Public Safety committee  We've had no experience with that in Ontario, but like Dr. Dowling in Alberta, we've not had a case where we've assigned the cause of death to the taser.

Public Safety committee  In many ways, it's the question of the moment in health care research as well, because as you know, drug companies sponsor the vast proportion of drug studies that are done, and often there has been the practice of withholding unfavourable results in the past. I think it's a very germane question, and I think your questions regarding the papers I showed are quite appropriate.