I read the packaging to make sure it suited my needs: "A short blast of a quarter-second duration will startle an attacker, cause minor muscle contractions and have a repelling effect.

If you shoot John" The blast startled her.

The implosion came a few minutes later, and the blasts startled the crowd that had gathered a block away.

The blast startled her.

Another sharp blast of heavy rain threw itself at the windowpanes of her flat, and brought Leith, startled, out of the brown study she had fallen into.

The sudden blast of the alarm and the white fog spewing from the ceiling startled Eric enough to make him scoot back a few feet.

Lanzecki's blast of surprise startled Lars off his perch.

The helmsman leans on the air horn, and the blast startles the flock of pelicans into sudden flight.

Its two short blasts sometimes startles visitors and newcomers, but others welcome the piece of history the whistle represents.

Its blast startled him and the wooded hills seemed to fling the echo back upon him.