A man reportedly burst into flames as police officer stunned him with a Taser just after he ’d doused himself in handwriting sanitizer , and is now recovering in a burn ward . While this unconvincing event is an exceptionally rare accident , it ’s not the first time that an electroshock weapon and a inflammable liquid have sparked a fervidness .
The incident occurred when Jason Jones , ripened 29 , get into a encounter with officers at the Catskill constabulary station in New York State , theTimes Union of Albanyreported . Details are slender , but Jones reportedly appear intoxicated and poured hand sanitizer on himself . In an attempt to subdue him , an officeholder deploy a Taser , and Jones burst into flaming .
Jones is reportedly in a " grave " shape in a burn unit in Syracuse . The police top dog support the incident occured , describing it as " horrifying , " and said it is under investigation by the Greene County territorial dominion attorney ’s situation .
A attack just needs three component to glow : oxygen , fuel , and heat . In this recent scenario , the Taser spark put up the heat needed to fill in the combustion , while the alcohol act as a fuel and the air served as the oxidizing agent . By and orotund , alcohol - based hand sanitizers are absolutely safe anddo not impersonate a fire riskunless they make contact witha direct spark .
There are a handful of documented instances where Tasers have ignited flammable materials , leave in injuries and even fatalities . A 2017 studyby US research worker identified six cases of disastrous burns stimulate by ECT weapons and four cases of major non - fateful burns out of 3 million utilization . A act of moderate and minor burns from galvanizing weapon were also note . These namely occurred when someone was being arrested with a cigarette lighter in their scoop or they were airless to a inflammable liquid , such as gasolene or recreational inhalants .
Back in 2010,Mythbusterstested out this hypothesis , inspired by an episode of the crime drama CSI : Crime Scene Investigation in which a man burst into flames in police force detention after being attacked with a stun gun and pepper spray . Not all of the pepper atomiser caused burning when merge with a stun gun , but a few did – causing the test dummy to light up like a match stick – because of flammable propellant or solvent found in the atomizer .
