[USA] In-Custody Deaths: Excited Delirium / Officer.com, 4 March 2007
http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=35148&siteSection=3
PAMELA KULBARSH
"A worst case scenario before you are even dispatched
The dispatch call may be for a disturbance or for a mentally ill subject. There will probably be several reporting parties. A man is yelling and screaming downtown; he has smashed in several stores' windows; he is nude. When you arrive you find you cannot communicate with him. He is grossly incoherent, obviously hallucinating. The subject is either acutely mentally ill, under the influence of drugs, or both. It is time to contain and control him. He needs to go somewhere--jail or a mental health facility. As you approach he immediately initiates a fight with apparent superhuman strength. Other officers respond and six of you engage in a protracted physical encounter. You finally get him handcuffed, and apply leg restraints. Paramedics have been called to the scene. While you wait, the subject still fights the restraints. Suddenly he stops struggling, and you realize he has also stopped breathing and has no pulse. ... On autopsy, the coroner cannot find sufficient evidence to establish a cause of death."