As a part of her training my daughter was sprayed with OC. Then sprayed with a wash made by Reflex Direct called NCS Fast. She ended up with fairly severe cornea scouring that will take about one week to recover from.

We wonder if it might be an allergic reaction or something to do with the combination of the two: OC and NCS Fast.

Any thoughts on this?

We would like to try and figure out if this is something unique to her (such as an allergy) or if it has something to do with these products in tandum (seems unlikely).

Update:
Daughter has been under the care of an eye doctor for the past two weeks, the pain is gone; however, vision is still degraded to the point where she cannot drive or engage in simple tasks like watching television. Her eye doctor has expressed concern that the healing is going much slower than expected and the next step may be an amniotic membrane graft.

This is what we believe happened:
One of the ingredients in the ncs fast cleaner is benzalkonium chloride, often used in eye drops. The reason for its use in eye drops may be the issue. Benzalkonium chloride is used in eye drops is because it works to open the cornea to allow the medicine in the eye drops entry. This is generally not a big deal since the cornea is one of the fastest healing parts of the body. However, what appears to have happened are two things: 1. The benzalkonium chloride allowed a substance from the spray, which would otherwise be relatively harmless, to enter the corneas and cause the damage. 2. The benzalkonium chloride is known to interfere with the ability of the eyes to tear.

Additionally the company representatives (daughter unknowingly was used as a guinea pig) left the cleaner in her eyes for 15 minutes. Another, well known company also makes a cleaner but make no mention of its use on eyes and recommends washing it off after 30 seconds.

We will know more at next Monday's eye doctor appointment. To be sure we are looking into possible legal action.


Silent

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Silent,

Only guy I ever knew with something like this was one that decided he would tough out getting sprayed, and not use any water to rinse his eyes. Otherwise I've never heard of it.

Someday it will be recognized that the ridiculous practice of deliberately spraying trainees with OC so “they know what it’s like” makes as much sense as shooting them so they would know what that’s like. Hopefully it won’t be prompted by someone’s suffering serious permanent injury. And yes, I know it’s done all the time; once lobotomies and bleeding people were done all the time.

I hope your daughter recovers quickly.

Well said sigfreund!

In the academy. Waaaaayyyy back in '94, getting sprayed and tasered was optional. Being the sane, rational man that I am, I said, "no way!" Then this little cute recruit said, " I'll do it." Then, by all that is holy, I HAD to do it. I have regretted it ever since.

I felt like I had sand in my eyes for about 3 days after being sprayed. Don't remember any problem seeing afterward though. Didn't have access to the NCS Fast stuff your referring to.

More pepper spray fun:
Into the dash vents of your buddy's patrol car.
Or on the steering wheel.
Or door handles.
Toilet seats,
Locker handles.
I knew lots of arrestees and cops who were doused with pepper spray. I know of no one who claimed any real physical damage. Copious flushing is the key.

We still spray recruits (no one cares about my opinion) but at least TASER is now an optional ride. Oddly, no one seems to take them up on the offer for five seconds of agonizing pain for no real purpose. Could be worse, our range staff gets sprayed annually.

I understand walking recruits through a cloud of CS. Riot control is a fairly important bit of training and you need to trust the mask AND know how bad it will suck if gas starts flying and you don’t have gear. I’m not a fan of pumping an enclosed space full of CS and making the recruits suffer. I’m not sure what purpose it serves other than to build a database of “we’ve exposed “x” number of people to CS/OC and none died horribly.”

Back on point though:
How close were they when they sprayed her and what kind of canister did they use? There are minimum ranges on those things for a reason.

Only time I’ve seen an injury from OC was from someone wearing contacts and trying to get them out after getting hit. They apparently didn’t take the “no contacts for this training” brief seriously.

I scratched a cornea once. That sucked. Bad. Cold wash rag over the affected eye helped some.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
More pepper spray fun:
Into the dash vents of your buddy's patrol car.
Or on the steering wheel.
Or door handles.
Toilet seats,
Locker handles.
I knew lots of arrestees and cops who were doused with pepper spray. I know of no one who claimed any real physical damage. Copious flushing is the key.

It’s a little tricky to do but a little squirt into a straw of a soft drink is a really good one

We had a couple deputies OC spray an unruly prisoner in the back seat of a car while transporting him to court. They had to pull off to air the car out. It must have looked like a Keystone Cops scene on the Capital Beltway during morning rush hour.

There are legitimate reasons to make certain training courses difficult and parts even unpleasant. Legitimate reasons are to ensure that candidates have enough desire and motivation to not only complete the training but to do the job after the training, and another is to build group solidarity. There are, however, countless ways to accomplish those goals without endangering trainees’ health. I’m reminded of reading that many Russian Spetsnaz troops lack front teeth because they were knocked out in training; just how does that benefit anyone?

And if it’s to test or condition people to perform after exposure, then why isn’t that what’s required? Take a spritz, then run 100 yards and handcuff a resisting arrestee or complete the handgun qualification course; fail either and out you go. But let’s see the fans of the process do it first.

Seems more like sanctioned hazing than training.

quote:

Originally posted by copaup:
Back on point though:
How close were they when they sprayed her and what kind of canister did they use? There are minimum ranges on those things for a reason.

Only time I’ve seen an injury from OC was from someone wearing contacts and trying to get them out after getting hit. They apparently didn’t take the “no contacts for this training” brief seriously.

I scratched a cornea once. That sucked. Bad. Cold wash rag over the affected eye helped some.

She was sprayed with Counter Assault OC 10 from a distance of 4 feet.

Silent

quote:

Originally posted by copaup:
Back on point though:
How close were they when they sprayed her and what kind of canister did they use? There are minimum ranges on those things for a reason.

Only time I’ve seen an injury from OC was from someone wearing contacts and trying to get them out after getting hit. They apparently didn’t take the “no contacts for this training” brief seriously.

I scratched a cornea once. That sucked. Bad. Cold wash rag over the affected eye helped some.

This. These are the only circumstances I have heard of eye injuries. We were told to "avoid" spraying someone under 3 feet with the MkIII size, 12 feet on the Mk9.

Back in the early 90's, they wiped CS under our eyes in the academy, don't recall that it was optional. To use OC, we had to be sprayed with it. I was one of the lucky ones that CN/CS had little to no effect on. OC is liquid hell.

The premise / excuse for hitting us with it was that if we were exposed to it, we still needed to be able to do our jobs or defend ourselves, which proved to be true more times than I can count when working in the jail. I got sprayed more times than I can count by other officers while subduing inmates.

quote:

Originally posted by MNSIG:
Seems more like sanctioned hazing than training.

This.

If I got eye damage from this stupid nonsense, I'd be calling my lawyer, like right now.

quote:

Originally posted by copaup:
I scratched a cornea once. That sucked. Bad. Cold wash rag over the affected eye helped some.

Same, took 2 years to fully heal.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
More pepper spray fun:
Into the dash vents of your buddy's patrol car.
Or on the steering wheel.
Or door handles.
Toilet seats,
Locker handles.
I knew lots of arrestees and cops who were doused with pepper spray. I know of no one who claimed any real physical damage. Copious flushing is the key.

drop of it on the vowels on a keyboard


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

we did it when in the academy and when we got OC while a boarding officer in the CG.

but we got sprayed,
fought one guy with an ASP baton for a minute
moved stations
fought another guy with a kick bag
moved again and handcuffed a subject
moved again to decon

I used two different kind of OC
1.) fog
2.) stream

you could not use the stream at more than 3 feet or you could risk damage to the subject's eye

we NEVER used anything more than water (Per the manufacturer)

I imagine that the product used to decon her is what hurt her cornea.

Learning how to fight thru it and work while being dosed was important. Many candidates had never been punched much less sprayed-so the controlled exposure taught them that when it happened, they could work thru it.

I've been a sworn LEO for over 40 years. I oversaw training of a state law enforcement agency for a time and I can cite NO valid reason to spray someone with OC.

I carry a gun, I was not shot with it.

I drove a car, I was not run over with it.

I carried a flashlight, I did not have it shined in my eyes nor was I hit in the head with it.

Spraying trainees or officers/agents is simply a macho thing. Nothing more, nothing less. Those in my agency that advocated it were basically scared of their shadows and it made them feel superior to torture others. I found other places for them than in training.

Once I left the same people got back in training and when the agency issued tasers they were salivating at shocking everyone.

People like them should not be in law enforcement.

Simply my opinion.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
And if it’s to test or condition people to perform after exposure, then why isn’t that what’s required? Take a spritz, then run 100 yards and handcuff a resisting arrestee or complete the handgun qualification course

Your agency/academy doesn't do that? It's simply "hose down the cadets so we can watch them squirm"? If that's the case, I could see how you would think every other agencies' OC exposure was more akin to hazing than training too.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeinNC:
but we got sprayed,
fought one guy with an ASP baton for a minute
moved stations
fought another guy with a kick bag
moved again and handcuffed a subject
moved again to decon

Ours is similar. You're expected to perform a series of tasks after exposure, including radioing for backup, baton strikes, hands-on grappling, handcuffing, and deploying a dummy gun, to demonstrate to the cadets that it's possible to fight through the pain/incapacitation when needed.

quote:

Learning how to fight thru it and work while being dosed was important. Many candidates had never been punched much less sprayed-so the controlled exposure taught them that when it happened, they could work thru it.

Agreed. It serves a purpose, and it's not "haze the rookies".

This is useful training, because anytime you deploy OC, the officer is also going to get exposed and suffer the effects to one extent or another, and they're still going to have to be able to finish the fight and make the arrest. Having already done so in training is much superior to the officer's first exposure being out in the real world, when it counts.

You're not automatically out of the fight just because you've been OC'd. Just like we train that you're not automatically out of the fight because you were shot, an important lesson we also teach safely using stuff like simunition training, simulated injuries on the range (one-handed gun manipulation, shooting from the ground, etc.), surprise first aid/tourniquet drills, and interactive video training.

So while cadets are not shot at the academy because it is absolutely unsafe, they're "shot" at the academy, for similar training purposes to OC exposure (which unlike being shot actually can be done safely).