Are there any factors that could make a person more or less likely to be able to be revived after a common household fatal electrocution? Yeah, that's a normal thing to ask... Details: MC is around 40 years old, in good shape except for having flatlined due to being electrocuted (some time, several years) before. He needs to die to reach the afterlife, so my current plan is to have him get into a tub with a toaster oven or some such in an old building without GCFI and zap himself. However, he doesn't want to permanently die, so he's arranged for someone to be on hand to revive him. The someone is a first responder (police officer) so they'll have some training in CPR and the like, but little to no special equipment. Is there anything my MC could do to mitigate the "severity" of his death or make himself easier to resuscitate? The person resuscitating him will not be in on the deal, he'll simply be rushing to help a friend who's done something stupid. @GingerCoffee, I think you're our resident medical expert, hope you might have some insight.
Did you ever watch the OA on Netflix? I dont want to give much away if you haven't, but it would probably be a good place to start with ideas on dying just enough to get to the afterlife, but then come back. Very odd show.
tl;dr at the end, but I'd read the whole thing for context. I'll try to give a quick, easy overview of AED use. Basically, in your heart, you have a few pacemakers, the main one being the sinoatrial node (SA node). The SA node sends electrical impulses throughout cardiac muscle cells to contract (causing the heart to "beat"). When problems happen with these pacemakers and the electrical activity in the heart, AEDs are brought out to try to shock the heart into resetting it's electrical activity to normal. When using an AED, there are two "shockable" rhythms, and two "unshockable" rhythms. Four total. The first is called asystole. This is an unshockable rhythm, meaning it will have no effect on the patient, so no shock is delivered. Asystole is characterized by there being no electrical activity in the heart. Since there's no electrical activity, there's no way a shock could reset the electrical activity that doesn't exist. This is often referred to as flatlining. You cannot shock a flatlined patient. The second rhythm is called pulseless electrical activity. This is the other unshockable rhythm, and it's characterized by electrical activity being normal, but the heart not being able to pump blood out from the heart. This is usually caused by significant blood loss. AEDs are used to reset electrical activity, and since the electrical activity itself is normal, a shock could only hurt the patient. Third, there's ventricular fibrillation. This is a shockable rhythm. It happens when the electrical activity is chaotic and random, making it impossible for the heart muscles to contract effectively and with a consistent rhythm. You shock this patient to try to reset their heart's electrical activity into not being chaotic and random. Lastly, there's pulseless ventricular tachycardia, which is a shockable rhythm. This is caused by the heart beating so rapidly that the heart cannot fill with enough blood in between contractions, so oxygenated blood is not getting to the body cells. The quick heartbeat is due to rapid signals sent by the SA node, so the shock is delivered to reset the rhythm of the SA node to normal levels. So basically, can't shock flatline. Your best bet is to have the electrocution result in either ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia. You can't really control which would occur, so no real way I can think of to make it safer for the patient (except very prompt, if not immediate, AED use). A better idea may be to have the character overdose on opioids and have the police officer give him naloxone (narcan).
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099582/ Flatliners There's an entire movie with this as the premise, was pretty good too if I remember correctly. (Don't watch the recent remake though, its truly awful)
I wasn't aware of this! Which begs the question, how many others believed you could be shocked from flatlining and if the general consensus is that most of us thought it to be true, is it then wrong to write it?
I mean, I wouldn't write it. But I don't make a big fuss about people that do. Can't expect writers to know every fact about everything. I actually saw a nurse once try to shock a flatline patient when I was a transporter at a hospital. I didn't understand then why the doctor reemed her a new one. I do now.
So if even some nurses aren't aware of this, I wouldn't expect the general population to be. I guess it depends on how authentic the story needs to be but thanks for posting this information - every day is indeed a school day!
In the movie Flatliners (the earlier one, not the horrible remake) I believe they induced hypothermia so that the damage would presumably be reduced due to slower body processes or something? And then they warmed the person quickly as they started the process of reviving them. I don’t quite remember how they induced death—drugs or shock? There are probably plot summaries—and maybe critiques that would map the fictional strategy against reality.
Honestly I couldn't tell you, but that was an hour and half of my life I'm never getting back! Dreadful, truly dreadful.
Ah, yes, I forgot about that. In many EMS systems, they induce hypothermia to prevent neurological damage once spontaneous circulation, also known as resuscitation, is achieved. However, Recent research suggests that you only need to prevent a fever, not induce hypothermia. But still very good point!
Also, there are medications that paramedics and nurses often give to patients in Cardiac Arrest. With that being said, most of this stuff your average police officer would not know. I think it would be more realistic to have him know CPR, and possibly inject adrenaline into the dead guy's chest, but the advanced stuff he most likely wouldn't know.
