The grieving mother of a Polish man who died after being shocked by a Taser at the Vancouver International Airport says police acted too quickly to zap her "beautiful son" with a stun gun.

Zofia Cisowski told the Canadian Press in an interview from her home in Kamloops, B.C., that Robert Dziekanski, 40, was "screaming" for help in Polish but no translator was called to find out why he was so agitated.

Zofia Cisowski says her son Robert Dziekanski, 40, was 'screaming' for help in Polish before police fired a Taser on Sunday at Vancouver's airport. He died minutes later. (Global)

"They must check more carefully" before acting to subdue people, she said Wednesday, suggesting her son could have been hungry and tired from the long flight and may have needed some medicine.

"Maybe something happened in the airplane because my son, for example, he was scared to fly. He was very scared but he made it."

Cisowski said she spent nine hours at the airport on Sunday waiting for her son to arrive and begin his new life in Canada as an immigrant but no one could tell her what had happened to him.

She drove back to Kamloops late Sunday night, only to receive a phone message from the airport on Monday when authorities told her that her son had died.

Zofia Cisowski with her son Robert Dziekanski in Poland, before she immigrated to Canada.
(Global)

"I said, 'My son was strong, that is wrong, that is impossible,' " Cisowski said. "And I fell down on the floor. He was so strong, so beautiful, and I loved him so much."

Cisowski had worked two jobs for seven years to save enough money for her only child to join her in Canada.

"I was waiting for my beautiful boy [to arrive]," she said. "I don't know how I will live without him."

Assistant-deputy chief coroner Jeff Dolan said an autopsy showed there was no trauma, disease or any other obvious cause of death. Officials are still waiting for the results of toxicology tests and microscopic examinations.

The death has refocused attention on the use of the Taser weapon by police in Canada.

Weapons overused: lawyer

Lawyer Cameron Ward, who represented the family of a man who died after being shocked by a Taser while in Vancouver police custody, said he believes the weapons are overused.

"The police are frequently using them on people who are not armed and who may be in medical or emotional distress," he said.

The RCMP said Dziekanski was in a state of excited delirium when police arrived, that he was yelling, throwing things, banging on the windows and sweating heavily.

Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre also disputed a witness account of the confrontation in the international arrivals area.

A woman said the man was shocked four times by police, but Lemaitre said the log on the Taser weapon used by an officer shows two electrical pulses were sent into the man.