6 Life Saving Techniques From the Movies (That Can Kill You)
We expect a certain level of medical farfetchery on television, like how Dr. House manages to keep the medical board from taking his license and setting it on fire.
But this lack of realism doesn't really hurt anything other than our intelligence, unlike these Hollywood medical myths, which could hurt you to death:
#6.
CPR Works When Nothing Else Will
As Seen On:
The Abyss, House, ER, Baywatch, Grey's Anatomy, Chicago Hope
According to Hollywood:
Sometimes doctors have to get up close and personal to keep death from stealing away their patients before they have a chance to pay their medical bills. By straddling the patient, giving mouth-to-mouth and pounding on their chest like Alex Van Halen, a doctor can bring someone back from the brink of oblivion, coughing and sputtering but alive and well.
A CPR gang rape doesn't work either.
The Wrongness:
We're not saying you should never perform CPR in real life--CPR works, sort of, by oxygenating the system and occasionally knocking the heart back in rhythm. However, there's not a whole lot it can do for someone who has already stopped being alive.
Also, CPR is nowhere near as sexilicious as television and the movies make it out to be. A properly performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation usually ends up cracking the patient's ribcage, which doesn't fit so well with a sweeping orchestral soundtrack. And the success rate is staggeringly low, something like two to four percent. In fact, most websites about manual resuscitation will tell you straight out that it almost never works.
Certain death sounds pretty good when the other option is a two to four percent chance of living through some stranger busting your rib cage and slobbering down your throat.
On a related note...
#5.
Defibrillators Can Bring You Back To Life
As Seen On:
Every medical show in existence
According to Hollywood:
The defibrillator apparently allows us to bring anyone whose heart has stopped back from the dead, provided we have at least 75 percent of their remains intact.
"Quick, get the defibrillator!"
With this wonderful piece of modern medical technology, we are able to laugh in the face of death, then spit in it, make obscene phone calls to his wife three in the morning, steal his newspaper and shit on his porch. With science.
The Wrongness:
Have you ever wondered why they call it a defibrillator instead of a de-deather or de-lawsofnaturer? That's because defibrillators don't work that way; they can't bring people back to life. They are a little like Sean Connery: suave and sexy in movies, but pretty unimpressive in real life (also very old and hairy).
Basically, what the defib machines can do is help a patient regain a regular heart rhythm when they go into cardiac arrest, which it does by stopping their heart. Hopefully, it restarts with a normal rhythm. If the patient is already flat-lining, meaning their heart has already stopped beating, using the defibrillator to stop it some more will do about as much good as removing a malignant brain tumor with a shotgun blast.
Imagine your heart is a dude carrying a few heavy boxes, which in this metaphor contain your organs. If he drops them, you die. When you have a heart attack this imaginary man loses his balance and starts swaying dangerously. A defibrillator is the guy that runs over and helps your heart stand up straight, effectively saving your life. What the defibrillator won't do is gather your heart up off the ground if it has already fallen and dropped its boxes, because quite frankly he's late for work as it is.
#4.
Gun Shots to the Shoulder or Leg are Flesh Wounds
As Seen On:
Die Hard, Rambo, Every Action Movie Ever
According to Hollywood:
In the movies and on television, taking a bullet in the arm or the leg just results in you bleeding a bit and limping around with gritted teeth, looking like a total badass. In fact, we're curious why movie cops don't just try slapping gunfire out of the air, seeing as how the subsequent damage is so inconsequential.
...oh right.
The Wrongness:
When it comes to bullets and your body, think less "make a tourniquet out of my headband and gut a few dozen more terrorists" and more "spend thousands of dollars on painful nerve grafts." For instance, a study done on 58 patients with gunshot wounds to the shoulder found that four months after the initial injury, 51 of them were suffering from persistent pain due to vascular damage and about half ended up with partial or complete loss of mobility in their arm, thus reducing their ability to punch terrorists by 50 percent.
If they're sissies.
The leg isn't much better. Due to the tightly packed arterial highway going through most of your body north of the kneecap, any penetrating round in that general area is likely to sever something really important. Without immediate medical attention, shooting someone in the leg can cause more blood loss than tossing a hemophiliac orphan through a plate glass window.
This orphan.
Honestly, if you really have to get shot either to satisfy a bet or cap off a homerun of a job interview, the best place to get hit seems to be the ass. With its layers of fat and lack of any major arteries or nerve clusters, a bullet to the cheeks is your best bet to avoid permanent damage apart from avoiding gunfire altogether.
Tourniquets apparently aren't actually that bad - and even if they were, if pressure doesn't work, a lot of people would prefer losing a limb to losing their life - but pressure should indeed be the first thing you try. However, if there's something in the wound, you don't pull it out (see #1), nor should you press on it. In that situation, apply pressure /around/ the wound.
ReplyHow about the lifeguard diving into the pool thing? While I agree not as dramatic, there are reasons guards are trained to JUMP in, not dive. Most drownings happen right where the shallow end starts to slope into deeper water (usually kids who got excited playing and went too deep), not near the diving board (people who know they can't swim generally don't go jump in the deep end). So diving would not be safe for the rescuer. Second, if someone really did run into trouble in the deep water, diving in makes you take your eyes off the victim, and you'll have no idea where they are when you surface and are rubbing the water out of your eyes. Those 10 seconds can count.
ReplyI would like to defend Master and Commander; when Mr. Spoiler got shot and removed the bullet, that would be included in #1. But lead (musket) bullets cause lead poisoning.
ReplyAlso it had carried a chunk of his (almost certainly filthy, given typical conditions at sea in the early 19th century) shirt into the wound. They were more concerned about getting that out than the bullet.
Woah woah woah woah! I'll be forgiving since this was written 2 years ago and the medical field has since changed, but tourniquets really ARE today's life saving procedure. They're only "fatal" to the limb they're placed on after 6 hours, and most medical situations are meant to be taken care of (from time of accident to OR) in less than 10 minutes. Tell me, would you rather risk it taking longer than 6 hours to make it into the operating room, or bleed to death?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesAnd not that it's meant to impress any of you people, this IS coming from someone who got out of training no more than 6 months ago. Now, tourniquets are what you do in 90% of situations that have to do with bleeding, that 10% being head injuries (obviously) and inguinal/axillary injuries, though even the shoulder/groin injuries get a hasty tourniquet until identified as such.
Nowadays we really are trained to slap a tourniquet on anything that looks like it's bleeding more than just a paper cut, and for good reason.
So...the same procedure that was terribly ill-advised two years ago is suddenly "life-saving" today? Did the entire human race suddenly evolve and no-one told me?
You are 100% correct. Thankfully there is someone else here that realized Cracked is wrong. I thought I'd have to post a super long informative thing like you did ^.^
'We could apply a tourniquet to the affected part.'
'Her neck would be favourite, then.'
Daviticus: people did more research on it.
Sure, tell me that making girls lose limbs is a turn-off after i ripped up all my shirts for tourinqets.
ReplyConcerning #2: A better choice for battlefield (read: movie) medicine isn't a tourniquet, but a tamponade with, surprise, a tampon to stop the bleeding.
ReplyOf course, the downside would be that Brick PunchMeat, epitome of manliness, has to jam a goddamn tampon into his gunshot wound, possibly a light shade of pink or a robin's egg blue, possibly with tiny butterfly or flower patterns pressed into the side.
Plus, a bloody tampon, regardless of how it got like that, really just icks everyone out.
Brick PunchMeat, epitome of manliness...I lost it. Damn!
The resuscitation rate for CPR has actually gone up to more like 7% (still not great but a hell of a lot better than 2%) since they changed the breath to compression ratio to 30 compressions to 1 breath.
ReplyThey did change it, and it is getting better. And even then CPR is really just to make sure the guy stays "alive" long enough for the paramedics/AED to get there. While the article is right in saying that people rarely spring back up from CPR, it's robbing it of the justice that it deserves.
They actually changed it yet again. Unless it is a child you don't have to breathe for them. It is just straight compressions now. I think the survival rate is now 10%.
I am an intensive care nurse and out of the many met calls we have only cracked about 5% of peoples ribs. Just sayin'.
ReplyI got the impression that they meant it usually cracks their ribs if you don't know what your doing. I'm a cop and I have had to perform CPR a few times but I never cracked ribs but I have seen people have ribs broken by untrained people trying to help
You are correct that the bones should not break. However in older people the cartilage will crack and that is completely normal.
How about real medical advice from real medical professionals? (And I will say right now that some of these points are entirely right, and some need further explanations)
Reply6) It is true that CPR, by itself, has a very small chance of actually healing someone, that's because it's not meant to. CPR is used to keep someone "alive" long enough for the patient to reach the hospital, where drugs and/or surgery will actually save the patients lives. And yes, part of CPR involves breaking the cartilage that connects the ribs to the sternum.
5) Defibrillators are used to treat this thing called fibrillation. Defibrillators stop fibrillation (where the heart is beating in an unnatural and very very irregular pattern, if you could even call it a pattern) by just stopping the heart. That way, the sinoatrial node can hopefully get the heart back to sinus rhythm.
4) Completely accurate
5) Entirely true. Plus, even holding the head down or the arms and legs down can be dangerous, since during a grand mal seizure, the victim can convulse hard enough that if your grip is tight enough, might break their neck or other bones.
2) Tourniquets are only used as a last resort in emergency situations where the patient faces the choice of either living but losing the limb or dying of blood loss.
1) This is somewhat true. Back then, it was better to leave the bullets in, but now, the bullets are almost always removed, and usually without too much risk, and there isn't too much of a hurry to remove the bullets, except in special circumstances (like a bullet to the spleen or the stomach).
I agree with all your points but #2 ... we are now trained to use tourniquets if simple pressure will not stop the bleeding. They are only dangerous if left on for more than 6 hours and if you are facing that then there are ways to still use it and not risk losing the limb.
When my boyfriend was in middle school, a girl at his school had a seizure and someone shoved a pencil down her throat (point end first) and wound up seriously damaging her tongue...I don't really understand how anyone can every be dumb enough to believe #3, I mean you're tongue's freaking attached to you, you're not going to swallow it.
Reply#3 made me really sad. :/ I hate being epileptic, it f*****g sucks.. And people that don't know how to deal with a seizure could very well kill the person they're trying to take care of. Besides, the thing you really have to worry about is brain damage, lol. Anyways, a lot of this made me giggle..
ReplyTeddy Roosevelt you were one tough son-of-a-bitch.
ReplyHollywood likes to pretend flesh-wounds are harmless let them found out what they really are like.
Reply*Walks into a film-studio lot. Starts shooting directors, actors and scriptwriters through arms and legs. Smiles.*
This is for my buddy John. John Rambo.
" . . .Oh right" i laughed so hard then realised that im in the bank and its dead quiet.
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Here's another common myth from TV/movies (although it doesn't meet the "life-threatening" criteria): People with lacerations in the wilderness who believe they have to immediately sew it closed with dirty fishing hooks and lines, or whatever else is handy. Non-life threatening lacerations should be left just as they are until proper medical care - they can even heal just fine without any intervention (via secondary intention, although it takes longer and leaves a bigger scar). Sewing a dirty wound closed without cleaning it (and in ERs they flush it continuously with sterile saline for a full 15 minutes, among other cleaning measures) will just seal bacteria in their idea of heaven (a nice, warm, enclosed space) which is way more life-threatening than the original cut.
ReplySo basically one of the major points of this article is "being shot in a non-vital area is NOT a flesh wound and you can't just walk around being a badass afterwards... unless you're Teddy Roosevelt."
Reply@TheRevTango I'm going to assume you're a first responder, and not a paramedic.
ReplyActually, he said that about CPR. But CPR in and of itself is not going to bring someone back most likely. Especially not compared to cardiac drugs.
Also, HOW are you getting that paddles will bring someone back after death? Unless you're a paramedic, you're using an AED and those won't even ALLOW you to shock asystole. If you're a paramedic you could use the manual paddles but that's a good way to lose your license. AEDs/Pacing/Manual/anything using electricity for cardiac issues will never be used for asystole. Next time you're first responding, ask the paramedic or EMT if they can or should shock a flatliner, especially one they didn't witness.
Or you know, consult EMS text books.
@Randy1985, are you a paramedic? EMT? First responder? Tourniquets are a last result in most agencies barring one instance: Envenomations, and then it's not a full on tourniquet, but a manual BP cuff inflated to the systolic BP, then lowered around 20. Bite block sure, it's not worthless if you can get it in to prevent them biting their tongue. I have yet to have a seizure that was significant enough to warrant the danger that I could actually get a bite block in what with the clenched jaw and moving about. Always a good thing to try though if you can unless it's an absence seizure.
K bro, so as a certified rescuer. I'm gonna have to tell you, you're full of s**t on the first two. CPR rarely brings anyone back to life; however it has the potential to (at the cost of broken ribs). The purpose is too keep life-giving oxygen circulating through the body especially the brain. A patients survivability increases SUBSTANTIALLY if CPR is administered within the fist 3 minutes of the patient losing consciousness, with diminishing returns every minute after that until the 10 minute mark where we see total brain death. The 10 minute to brain death timeline can be pushed back greatly by administration of CPR. As for defibrillators, they actually can bring you back to life IF YOU HAVEN'T suffered total brain death. All the muscles in the human body are still affected by shock up to several hours after death; this means that you can, in-fact restart a heart by shocking it. The concept works like this. There are two nerves in the hear that pretty much do a little high-five whenever the heart contracts. If you are having an irregular fibrillation like in a heart attack it will disrupt the beat of the heart and you cross your fingers hoping those nerves line up properly. If the heart has stopped entirely the muscles WILL contract when the heart is shocked. And it will hopefully allow the nerves to line up properly again causing a regular fibrillation. PLEASE DO BETTER RESEARCH NEXT TIME!
Replyas well for the seizure by placing something into the person mouth it stops them from bitting and swolling it, as for the Tourniquet yes it does prevent the wound from bleeding more thne it is, this is a good reason why i hardly read this site anymore.
The last one reminds me of a mr. bean movie, when he accidently posses as a doctor a is left alone in the OR, somehow managing to drop an m n m into an open wound...
ReplyWhy did people give than thumbs down? That's awesome! :p
Lol