Which brings us back to what I said originally... there is a high probability that there is some current flowing everywhere in the body. You can't say this for absolute certainty.
Actually, you can. It's Electrical Engineering 101. The highest EE course I took in college was EE 3010. That's the highest course any non-EE engineer ever took.
Of course the point of this is to show that it's impossible to ascertain if a Taser is ALWAYS safe.
You're right about that. Any time you hit someone with 50,000 volts, there are consequences. The spikes are of very short duration, however, and as the body has a natural inductance, they're not on long enough to result in any significant flow of current. Still, the voltage itself results in serious disruption of nerve impulses controlling the muscles, and the heart, after all, is a muscle. So is the diaphragm, which is why a sustained burst can cause someone to black out due to lack of O2. It's caused by both the hear failing to beat and the lungs not being able to breath. It also takes a few seconds after a hit for things to settle down.
It's for these reasons those who use tasers should be trained on their use so as to avoid sustained or oft-repeated attack.
Dielectric breakdown IS in fact a change of impedance VERY quickly. This is what happens when an over-voltage is applied to a capacitor.
Yep. Same thing with lightening, as air itself is a dielectric, as are most insulators.
Besides, the context of this is Taser safety. Unless a Taser measures impedance before it applies full voltage each time its used then it can't know how much current it will drive. However, I suspect it has a built in current limiting circuit to prevent worst case situations.
They do, and that's precisely what causes it to cycle. Most are diode-capacitor voltage multipliers, often with a step-up transformer. TASER International warns law enforcement agencies that “prolonged or continuous exposure(s) to the TASER device’s electrical charge” may lead to medical risks such as cumulative exhaustion and breathing impairment.
