Take my breath away

In the late nineties and early noughties alongside trying to grow up (I've stopped trying now), running a Martial Arts organisation & teaching self-defence in schools (I still have a passion for this now) I also worked for a stint as a door supervisor - pre Security Industry Authority. The long since removed council registration schemes meant you had to attend and learn about fire extinguishers (they said they're mostly red & told us not to hit people with them), were give advice on customer service (let people walk down stairs one, not ten at a time) and all doormen received a photo-card license complete with a photograph they took of you when you attended. Working several nights across Lancashire, Manchester and the Fylde this meant my wallet was a Paul Blartesque collection of laminated plastic cards with a variety of awful images.

This was before the Private security Act was passed which coincidentally saw some 10,000 (10% of 100k) old school “bouncers” lose their jobs with the introduction of criminality checks as they simply couldn’t qualify for a licence now in the first place. The SIA was initiated with the intention of "cleaning up the industry" and with the introduction of the new legislation & associated regulations, I observed a fall in doormen and a drastic rise in "meeters & greeters" & "glass collectors" in their place, all surprisingly quite large and intimidating and ever so familiar?

Doors, playgrounds & the art of the headlock

Primary school - reading, writing, arithmetic & riding out headlocks and as a lot of playground scuffles were solved as kids, people were often ejected in a headlock when exiting nightclubs. Doing the doors back then was a very different affair to today (if you want an insight into how to become door supervisor then a good friend of mine Ryder Scott has written a a manual - I have no shame in plugging great products). Before automatic doors were commonplace I heard rumours of heads opening doors on more than one occasion and I will never forget one door supervisor’s response when asked to account by his employer for actions caught on CCTV;

Licensee:           You trapped his head in the door?

DS:                      I slipped…

Licensee:            Five times?

DS:                      (shrugging) It was slippy…

Urban myth or legend?

One urban myth involving a headlock that allegedly took place at a late night venue in Preston that has long been long knocked down to make way for student accommodation (and where I first met my wife to be many years before we got together) involves a headlock and a firearm. The story insinuates that a gunman, hiding in the toilets of the venue was initiating his own Northern version of the Euston station 30p barrier system with the observable differences;

1) you crossed his palm not with silver but in watches, chains, wallets jackets or trainers.

2) you didn't get the chance to spend a penny - although some very nearly did as they made their escape I imagine.

Receiving a report of this uninvited toilet attendant and his underhand tactics, the doorman, without a second thought burst in, applied a firm headlock and ran the length of the nightclub, through the dancing crowd, down the stairs, out through the front door and into the road - blissfully unaware of the hand cannon the assailant still had in his hand loaded with bullets no doubt that he very nearly absorbed in the process.

Learning about a human rights-based, positive and proactive, non-aversive approach must precede any training on the application of restrictive interventions. This is an overarching principle that the majority of organisations are on board with and holds around the neck have since been taken out of many manuals and the SIA PI (which once again I must stress isn’t a system for anyone to use where a subject doesn’t comply it is for assisting intoxicated people with their consent) doesn’t include them. The main reason? Neck holds kill people. So why are people still using them?

I can't breathe

The famous "I can't breathe" slogan which became part of the black lives matter campaign erupted into the media after the death of Eric Garner. The New York City medical examiner's reports suggest it's more complicated than Eric being "choked to death". It describes Garner's death as being due to, quote, "compression of the neck" as well as, quote, "compression of the chest and his prone positioning during physical restraint by police." On many an occasion I have heard people's misconception that "if they can speak they can breathe".

Firstly by emptying your lungs alone you can utter words, sentences and even with no air left a noise can be made but, more importantly oxygen debt? It is cumulative. Meaning that blood cells in your body hold oxygen and if you are tired or have been subjected to a prolonged struggle, been playing basket ball for example or resisting arrest then there may be very little oxygen held in these cells anyway.

"Time and time again, we are told by Coroners neck holds should not be used. The prone position should not be used."

Michael Mansfield QC

Prone restraints are something I want to explore in my next blog post so for a more in-depth look please watch this space, in the meantime lets focus on neck holds and lets look to the US. In some US states despite high profile deaths accounted to positional asphyxia, holds around the neck are still being used and some forces actually differentiate between "choke holds" and "neck holds" explicitly banning "doing something to cut off the air" or as it is colloquially known "cutting off the gas".

There are even companies dedicated to training officers in these vascular neck restraint techniques and professionals who stand by defending their use blaming deaths like that of Eric Garner on them being applied "incorrectly".

Cutting off the misconceptions, not "the gas"

The myth that occlusion of the trachea and the cutting off of air is the only risk factor associated with death is a dangerous one & one that research tells us simply isn't true. We are told scientifically that n interruption of blood flow to the brain for more than 10 seconds causes unconsciousness, and an interruption in flow for more than a few minutes generally results in irreversible brain damage. All you have to do is google "karate chop" and a whole host of clips will be at your disposal of people being not held but struck on their carotid sinus and their legs going immediately.

The mechanism of a neck hold is that yes even when applied "correctly" it acts on the vascular system and not the airway - but often immediately resulting in the baroreceptors sending a false reading to the brain dumping your blood into your legs. This happens a lot more quickly than presumed as what kills is the blood supply to the brain being stopped and not asphyxiation.

So why do people use neck holds? Perhaps it is that the holds they are shown aren't working or are ineffecient and when they "revert to type" they find they are going back to what they did in the playground or even what they do in their spare time when they roll around mats practising sports oriented based Martial Arts? Either way it is a practice managers, licencees, directors and trainers need to raise awareness of as the position in which someone is held is an important factor to reduce restraint injuries and deaths.

About the author: Doug is way more Goose than Maverick (in that he is tall) as he doesn't even fly a plane - just up & down the country in his car or on train. This week Doug has been working with teachers from two schools in Leytonstone, care home staff in Lancashire, it's soft-cuff training on Tuesday in Birmingham and he is off to deliver soft restraint refresher training to a hospital in Devon later in the week. You can keep up with Doug on Twitter or via his facebook page.