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TASER put out the standard self-serving press release that any publicly traded company would but they included an interesting statement:
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Cardiac arrest caused by electrical current is immediate. The video of the incident at the Vancouver airport indicates that the subject was continuing to fight well after the TASER application. This continuing struggle could not be possible if the subject died as a result of the TASER device electrical current causing cardiac arrest. His continuing struggle is proof that the TASER device was not the cause of his death.
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LOL. What basis do they have for saying that cardiac arrest from a shock must be instant? A shock can throw the heart into a dangerous arrhythmia that can eventually progress to ventricular fibrillation (which would render him unconscious in seconds). But that need not happen the exact instant the TASER is applied since arrythmias can evolve over time, either back in to a normal rhythm or into other dangerous rhythms.
It's also possible that the extreme physical stress of being tasered caused a heart attack (which is an entirely different mechanism than shock-induced arrhythmia). His blood pressure and heart rate likely went thru the roof, and may have caused an atherosclerotic plaque supplying one of the arteries to his heart to rupture, thus blocking the blood supply to the heart and causing severe damage to the heart muscle. Maybe the heart attack was bound to happen anyways. Maybe tomorrow, and maybe 20 years from now. But the TASERing seems to have been the precipitating event.
I also love how the cops rushed to call for medical help and start CPR immediately. Are all cops, fireman, and paramedics not trained in CPR as a standard of practice?
As a Canadian, this video makes me angry.