Posted on 03/15/2006 12:33:00 PM PST by Renfield
LEBANON, Va. -- A former southwest Virginia emergency medical worker who fatally zapped a co-worker with a cardiac defibrillator was sentenced to time in state prison Tuesday.
Prosecutors said Joshua Martin was goofing around last June when he put the defibrillator paddles to coworker Courtney Hilton's side and gave her a fatal jolt of electricity.
Martin pleaded guilty to involuntary Manslaughter in January. He cried and apologized to Courtney Hilton's family in court.
Russell County Circuit Judge Mike Moore suspended four years of a five-year sentence.
Martin has been in jail since January. He must serve a remaining 10 months behind bars, followed by five years on probation.
"Someone help me out here.
I thought I'd once heard that a defibrillator won't work unless the electrodes detect something out of whack in the patient's heart rhythm."
That's how the defribrillators you see in public work. They are automatic and won't zap someone unless they detect a problem. (Still not a toy, obviously, and I'm sure something could go wrong, so PLEASE nobody test this out!)
However, defribrillators used by med techs, nurses, doctors, etc., for example in ambulances and hospitals, zap when they are triggered. The medical professional is supposed to know how and when to use them, and I'm sure there are circumstances when fighting the automatic sensor and triggering circuits could cause a critical delay.
After all those years as Count Dracula's go-fer, you could at least use a pen name.
He was an emergency medical technician. He should have known, better than most, the danger of his actions.
My AED (Automated External Defibrillator) instructor was adamant that you don't touch the body while the device is administering a shock. He said that there have been first responders who have had their hearts stopped when they were trying to shock someone. This guy is a fool.
A few (repeat: few)of the people I've seen working as EMTs, I wonder how they ever made it out of high school.
You most likely received training on an AED, an Automated External Defibrillator.
What this guy used was a non-automated defibrillator that Paramedics and some EMT's use.
An AED will not deliver a shock unless it has analyzed a patient and found them to be in need of a shock (in V-tach or V-fib). You can't just hit the button.
AED's are very very safe. There is no need for a sticker
I thought the five years was too light. One year is just an insult.
AED's are very very safe. There is no need for a sticker.
You are correct. I was actually going to use it on a couple of insurgents I have locked up in my basement. shoot. no joy.
I don't have a sticker on my car warning me that it can be deadly.
Don't use one on me unless I am actually in fib. I have a pace maker and these things will zap it and cause heart failure(cardiac arrest). Even a person with a normal heart can suffer cardiac arrest when zapped, they interrupt the electrical pulses of the heart, then the heart can reset itself, that is if the heart was beating abnormally, if not it can cause serious consequences, such as death! I find it strange that I know this and a person trained to use them doesn't know it.
You are talking about the ones implanted inside a patient, such as a pace maker is. The ones that the medics use, and the docs, do not detect anything, they go off when the button is pushed! The guy was really stupid for not zapping her again when she went into arrest, this may have brought her back to normal.
This reminds me of a friend of mine who wasn't exactly a big guy but worked as a bartender. He kind of had a Napolean complex because of his size so a lot of people didn't show him much respect.
He comes to work one night and proceeded to start showing off his stun gun to the bar patrons. Then the bozo put it in his back pocket, leaned against the metal counter behind him and zapped himself so bad he ended up in the floor with the whole bar roaring with laughter.
I still laugh just thinking about it.
"I don't have a sticker on my car warning me that it can be deadly."
I don't know if it is urban legend or not, but there is a strong rumor out there that if you put a bullet in a gun, point the gun at your head, and pull the trigger,...it can kill you. But there is no sticker on the gun barrel validating such. Someone needs to look into this.
"I've heard kitties can be dangerous too."
ask seigfried and roy.
Highly unlikely unless you have a pacemaker that is 20+ years old implanted. The FDA requires that testing be done to insure that the design of the protection circuitry shunts the defibrillator energy avoiding damage to the pacer. That's been a requirement since at least the 80s. Worst case, the pacer should revert to a safe state where it will pace asynchronously at a fixed rate.
How old is your pacer and what type and model is it?
ROFL!
Where is their warning sticker?????
Where is their warning sticker?????
On their behind, which could have been still smartin' a bit from partying the previous night with S & R. Maybe the cats had had enough.
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