Tell Me Something I Don't Know

[wolfie]

Well, first you have your Igor open the skylights.....

Yeth, mathter!

I hope Dr. Frankenstein keeps his laboratory tidy. Otherwise, if someone from the DEA hears Igor talking about it, the place will get raided.

[Dytchdoctir]

A jack rabbit is not a rabbit. It is a hare.

A marsh hare is not a hare. It is a rabbit.

[Tama]

In Fallout 3, Fawkes CAN actually die.

[dalesys]

Gah! Where'd you come from? And stop that ridiculous lisp.

You rang-eth.

[sms001]

Yeth, mathter!

Gah! Where'd you come from? And stop that ridiculous lisp.

[dalesys]

Well, first you have your Igor open the skylights.....

Yeth, mathter!

[sms001]

What is SUPPOSED to happen for reviving them if they are flatlining?

Well, first you have your Igor open the skylights.....

[crazylegs]

What is SUPPOSED to happen for reviving them if they are flatlining?

ALS for asystole in the UK is CPR - 30 compressions to 2 rescue breaths (delivered by bag/valve/mask or airway device) and adrenaline delivered intravenously or via intraosseus access every 3-5 minutes.

The odds for getting someone back from asystole is unlikely if there's no reversible cause*. So again I get a bit shouty at the TV. A resus is most certainly not like it's portrayed - it's messy, brutal and can be very difficult to watch. Intubation (passing a tube into the throat for a definitive airway) is also far harder than it's portrayed on the TV and in the UK there are moves away from calling it a gold standard and allowing practitioners to simply use whatever works for that patient.

For a much better written synopsis here's the UK resus council algorithm

http://www.resus.org.uk/pages/als.pdf

*Reversible Causes
Hypoxia
Hypothermia
Hypoglycemia (and other metabolic disorders)
Hypovolaemia

Tamponade (cardiac
Thromboembolic obstruction
Tension pneumothorax
Toxins

[EricKei]

Presumably, hope and/or prayer and/or "DAMMIT! NOT AGAIN! I WON'T LOSE THIS ONE!" or words to that effect. Other than that...? Pure dumb luck, I would suppose.

[Tama]

What is SUPPOSED to happen for reviving them if they are flatlining?

[crazylegs]

So basically the defib is the biological equivalent of pushing the on/off button, holding, waiting for it to go off, rebooting, etc? Wow.

Pretty much.

A defib only works if there's some electrical activity going on in the heart, so if the heart is in asystole (flatlining) then there's no point in shocking the pt. This is why I get angry at medical dramas

[Tama]

So basically the defib is the biological equivalent of pushing the on/off button, holding, waiting for it to go off, rebooting, etc? Wow.

[SongsOfDragons]

Yes indeed. Basically, in true IT style, you're trying turning the heart off and on again and hoping it reboots in a way that works.

I remember not too long ago one of the medical practitioners on here - Sapphire Silk perhaps, I can't remember? - posted a fantastic old video about a doctor-lecturer guy doing a series of crazy little dances that demonstrated varying arrythmias of the heart and how the defib works at the end. It was so funny and informative too.

[PandaHat]

A defibrillator (the device used by medics to shock you during cardiac arrest) doesn't restart your heart, it stops it.

Yes indeed. Basically, in true IT style, you're trying turning the heart off and on again and hoping it reboots in a way that works.

[dalesys]

And then there are the bookleggers in A Canticle For Leibowitz...