Hearing that a cellphone
saved someone's life isn't exactly surprising these days, but it was the manner in which a bundle of handsets enabled doctors to continue on in a recent operation that differentiated this one from the rest. Reportedly, the backup
generators at the Policlinico Juan D. Peron hospital in Argentina failed to activate after the power went out whilst an appendix surgery was ongoing, but rather than panicking, a family member gathered up a number of phones in order to provide enough light for the
surgeons and anesthetists to keep on keepin' on. According to the hospital director, the
operation went on without proper lighting for no more than 20 minutes, but thanks to the beaming LCDs, the fellow under the knife came through just fine.
[Via
Switched, image courtesy of
foto8]
posted Jul 31st 2007 7:01AM
-or that time I was exploring this tomb in Egypt.
AZIZ, PHONE!!
Lol, I like!
"Thank you Aziz."
"....and then the patient died from multiple bouts of pure radiation poisoning...."
"...only life important..."
Clearly the "Always Turn Off Your Cellphone in a Hospital" rule was waived in this case. ;^)
and they didn't have freakin flashlights at the hospital?
5 possible reasons for that:
1. They didnt have any
2. The batteries expired
3. The bulbs blew
4. They couldnt find them
5. The patient operated on was the hospital's electrical engineer and probably threw them away thinking they were not neccesary.
Or:
6. Hospital didn't have the budget for explosion-proof flashlights suitable for use in operating rooms stocked with oxygen cylinders and volatile anesthetics.
Flashlights aren't known for exploding and there are plenty of things hotter than a flashlight bulb in an operating theatre. And that's only a few of the reasons that explosions aren't even remotely a concern in an operating theatre.
No, the simple fact of the spark created by pushing the power button on a flashlight would suffice to ignite the pure oxygen and anesthetics used in an Operating Room.
The flashlight would not actually explode, but the simple fact of turning it on could potentially ignite the atmosphere in the room.
My R$ 0.04
I remember the days of old when we had this wonderful device called a "flashlight". Then they became solar powered and it was all downhill from there...
I don't know what you're talking about... I use my solar powered flashlight as often as my DVD rewinder. Very useful products.
I wonder if the patients family is gonna sue the hospital now.
nice 5th Element reference... A good surgeon should be able to do it blind-folded anyway! ;-)
Heh reminds me of Trauma center for Wii/DS where you use a pen flashlight and later on a camera's flash to perform an operation.
If this had been in California, the guy still would have sued them.
Wow, and no one caught that "anesthetists" should be "anesthesiologists"?
Next we'll be calling them "doctists" and "dentors"...
Anesthetist is also correct. Just ask the AANA, the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists.
I guess I'm cellphone-challenged: I can't keep mine bright for more than 5 seconds at a time. Operate by strobelight, anyone?
Yeah, I was picturing family members having to keep pressing buttons on an array of cell phones for 20 minutes.
What would MacGyver do?
Say what you will, but I say hail to the balls of those doctors who could pull off such feat without hesitating.
I'm ashamed tho that our Hospitals abroad aren't suitable to resist our energy crisis.
The fact that our Provinces are in harsh technological isolation (compared to Capital Buenos Aires) doesn't help either.
If any of them had good old Nokia 1100's, there would have been LED flashlights built right into their phones!
To be honest, barring cellphone use in hospitals prevents many useful applications (usually better communication between doctors and such), though this is a somewhat unorthodox use...
It's important to add that they just needed some light to do the stitches, but the important, life-saving part was already done before the lights went out.
My mobile does better as a torch then my actual torch does, with less glare.
This makes sense to me.
At least it wasn't a Nintendo DS or iPhone.
So, um, if there wasn't power enough for lights, how was there power enough for those other machines in the room, like the ventilator and anesthesia monitors (you know...the things that actually keep the patient alive)?
You can manually ventilate the patient with a bvm, and as for anesthesiology goes you don't need anything monitoring him unless something goes wrong and you can check that by manually checking pulse, bp, and other such vitals.
That is nice that they were able to save the person.
This does remind me of a very old Ericsson Mobile commercial. The lights go out durring a football game and everyone turns on their green lighted cell phone so they can finish watching the sport.