Yowwffff!

Let’s revisit Captain Herb Danner, protagonist of Death is a Green Man, and look at his near death experience. In the opening splash page of the story, his damaged plane crashes hard during an attempted landing. The rescue crew pulls him from the plane.

Don’t shock a flatline! It doesn’t work; physiologically, it cannot work.
However, if for whatever reason you decide to shock a stopped heart, don’t use wires from a plane’s ignition to do it!
1. I know it’s been a while, but remember that defibrillation (”shocking”) is used to convert a dangerous heart rhythm (such as ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia) to a normal one. It works by zapping the heart with just enough electricity to stun it — stopping it for a split second — with the hope that this will allow a normal heart rhythm to return. Stopping an already stopped heart just won’t accomplish anything.
2. The ignition from a plane (or a car, for that matter) is a poor choice to shock the heart, regardless. Ignition voltage is way too high, and the energy output in Joules is way too low, for it to be an effective defibrillator.
3. A key question a rescuer needs to consider is “why did my patient’s heart stop?” In the case of Captain Danner, it occurred as result of the plane crash, which makes me think there was some significant trauma to the heart. So even if you could successfully restart the heart, it would quickly stop...

Source: Polite Dissent - October 13, 2016 Category: Primary Care Authors: Scott Tags: newtag Source Type: blogs