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Thursday, April 03, 2008

Medical Quibble With Secret Invasion #1 (SPOILERS)


This is just a minor point, and it doesn't detract from the book, but...

SPOILERS


You know the scene where Iron Man has a seizure and they ask for something to put in his mouth?

When someone has a seizure, you are not supposed to put anything in their mouth, because they could choke on it.

From the Wikihow on treating someone with an epileptic seizure:

" Do not touch the person's mouth or put anything in it, including water or medicine used to treat seizures, as it may cause the person to choke. People having seizures cannot swallow their tongues, despite popular belief."

I was brought up to think that you had to give the person a pencil to bite down on or something, so they wouldn't swallow their tongue. But you are not supposed to put anything in the mouth of someone having a seizure -- no pencils, fingers, meds, anything.

Anyway, feel better, Tony Stark. Sucks about the Skrull thing.

12 comments:

  1. Thank you! I'm glad I wasn't the only one who, in a comic book filled with shape shifting aliens, guys who can fly as easy as walking, women who can shrink size (although she was mysteriously missing), was neurotic enough to think that that was the most far fetched idea. They stopped teaching that technique years ago. I mean c'mon Bendis, are we still living in the 70's here? Oh yea...

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  2. "I mean c'mon Bendis, are we still living in the 70's here"

    see, that's the key! they are using 1970s medical knowledge. which means...they are skrulls!

    aha!

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  3. I think we've uncovered the entire threat. They're not replacing world leaders or superheroes, those damn dirty skrulls are making everyone doubt basic medical skills!

    "Quick, this guy is choking, someone help!"
    "Just hit him on his back between his shoulders. He'll be fine."

    You realize when BMB reveals that scene as a clue we all missed in October that this conversation is going to take on a hilarious new life. I don't know if I'd be impressed or sad...

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  4. Ms. Marvel should know better? I guess, since she's been presumably trained by the Initiative, that this would be covered in First Aid Class. Maybe it just wasn't.

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  5. 'Ms. Marvel should know better? I guess, since she's been presumably trained by the Initiative, that this would be covered in First Aid Class. Maybe it just wasn't.'

    Seizure care isn't usually covered by military first aid training (it's not among the likeliest of first aid problems to be faced).

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  6. You cannot treat an Iron Man medical emergency like a regular person's medical emergency.

    From Wikironmanopedia:

    "Never... NEVER... leave the mouth empty during an Iron Man medical emergency. Find the nearest branch and shove it in as tight as possible. Try to get the chick with her costume in her ass to do this... since she'd obviously be a professional. And... well... Tony digs chicks with some junk in her badonkadonk... knowhwhatimean..?"

    This is quoted VERBATIM.

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  7. I think it's also good medical device to not fly hellicarriers over major metropolitan areas, given that something like 70% of them crash within two pages of being introduced into the plot of any Marvel comic.

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  8. I learned something new today about seizures and first aid. Oh, I also learned that you shouldn't put stuff in people's mouths when they're having a seizure.

    I'm not too angry at the mistake though. For people not trained in first aid, we hear and see people getting blocks of wood put in their mouths when they have seizures in tv, movies, and obviously comics. Without any equal source dispelling the myth, most people would eventually take that bit of information as truth.

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  9. Question: so I have secret invasion saga, and in it, Iron Man recounts how Black Bolt turned into a Skrull before the eyes of the rest of the Illuminati.

    Then, in Secret Invasion 1, Iron man tells Reed Richards (and Hank Pym) about the skrull secret as if its new information to Richards.

    Waaaaa?

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  10. So, all these years and tonys yet to install virus protection in his armour still?

    he needs macafee to hook him up.

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  11. Well, he might not have virus definition files for those created by alien races. Or, "Jarvis" could have tampered with things while Tony was off saving the world or whatever.

    I don't want to take this argument too far, as it might actually legitimize what Will Smith did in Independence Day.

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  12. As a person who suffered from childhood epilepsy, that part of the story made me cringe. Yeah, it was a very 70s misconception, and I was lucky that my family never did any actual damage when I had a seizure.

    Although I was less disturbed by that than by how long Lenil Yu made Spider-Man's head!

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