TV "first aid" that does far more harm than good
zeez
Worst Aid
Leon: You treated and bandaged the bullet wound to my FUCKING UNIFORM!
Heaven forbid we lose one of the RPD's finest officer uniforms, you
tart.
— thedarkid's Let's Play of Resident Evil 2
Fictional first aid is often applied in ways that would be useless or
outright counterproductive in Real Life. There's the reason of safety,
as during CPR or the Heimlich maneuver organs in the way are
considered to be expendable. There's the practical reason that the
audience might prefer their unconsciousness and revival scene without
it turning into 5 Fun Things To Do With Vomit. There's the dramatic
reason that a character may not actually know first aid, or the work
may be a period piece where medical knowledge is less advanced.
There's the likely reason that people Did Not Do The Research.
Stock mistakes are:
* Moving injured people without stabilizing their head first.
* Removing impaling foreign objects from wounds. Generally they've
smashed all the bits they're going to smash, and are now acting as a
plug on the wound. Barbed weapons might tear more flesh and even if
it's not, you're unlikely to be able to pull it out at the exact angle
it went in.
* Depicting mouth-to-mouth as romantic. Using CPR on that pale,
dying individual in your arms has about a 2% chance of revival on its
own. And everyone knows a 98% chance of death creates the perfect sexy
mood.
o Likewise, mouth-to-mouth after nearly drowning only really
works if you get most of the water out first.
+ In short, they are not life-saving techniques, they
are life prolonging techniques designed to keep someone in some sort
of recoverable state while actual help arrives.
* Depicting professionals doing mouth-to-mouth in modern times.
EMTs and hospital staff will always use a bag valve mask, both for
hygiene (having a patient throw up in your mouth used to be a rite of
passage for paramedics) and because it delivers more oxygen.
* Having a male rescuer get squicked about performing
mouth-to-mouth on another male, and playing it for laughs that they're
placing their macho insecurities above someone's life.
* Disregarding the security of an accident scene or even personal
safety, in violation of the most important rule: Avoid increasing the
number of casualties. Rushing onto the freeway isn't any more safe
because there's an upended car on it. This one's popular in real life.
* Using a shirt or other article of clothing as a makeshift
tourniquet to stop bleeding for a gunshot wound. While this allows for
the male lead to show off his mighty torso, it's a very bad idea in
real life because it deprives the limb in question of the blood it
needs to continue functioning. Without hospital care, this will result
in the limb becoming necrotic and falling off.
o You're actually better advised to stop the bleeding by
putting your hand (or theirs) as pressure on the injury. That way you
won't be using clothing that will probably stick to the drying blood,
causing other problems later when real help arrives.
o You use a tourniquet if all other attempts to stop
excessive bleeding fail. The point of a tourniquet is to cut off blood
flow. As you might expect, the limb you just deprived of oxygen
usually dies. This is preferable to the victim dying of blood loss
however. I believe it is also recommended that lay responders don't
apply tourniquets.
* In Hollywood, if CPR is ineffective it is perfectly fine to
start randomly striking the patient in the chest in an attempt to
restart their heart. In real life, this is called a Precordial Thump.
It is a precisely aimed blow delivered by an expert in an attempt to
interrupt a life-threatening rhythm, in the event that a defibrillator
is not available, and can only be attempted once. Like a
defibrillator, it cannot restore an asystolic heart.
Spotting or MSTing such depictions is good for a lark. Unfortunately,
Reality Is Unrealistic, so they are likely not harmless and it might
be a good idea for a media fiend to take a first aid course. Depending
on your country, any mid-sized or larger city should offer an initial
2-4 day - hey. Hey!
See also CPR Clean Pretty Reliable, Magical Defibrillator, Suck Out
The Poison and You Fail Your Medical Boards Forever; compare Annoying
Arrows.
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