Tae 12 - Re: Hello? Is anyone in there?

The Music of The Night wrote: "nonono you moron, if you're going commit suicide, the best way to do it (well if using a knife or sharp object like broken glass) is to slash the throat. The jugular makes pretty patterns when tapped. "

Tae writes:

No. No. No. You _idiot_. If we were discussing ways to commit suicide, then slashing the wrist would be listed under 'ho hum.' But you weren't discussing a botched suicide attempt in your last post - were you? If you were - try again.

ObTasteless:

Got a call for a suicide attempt last week. A man walked out of his house and onto the sidewalk. In one hand he held a fistfull of pennies, in the other - an M80 firecracker.

Before anyone could stop him, he put all the pennies in his mouth, then put the M80 in his mouth, and lit it. The explosion drove the pennies through his soft palate, and into his brain. When we arrived, we found a man supine on the sidewalk, with a big red splotch where his face used to be. There were no remaining landmarks anywhere on his face. Surprisingly, he was still breathing. Whether it was the remaining intact brainstem or that he was just too stupid to know he should've been dead - I'll never know. Since he was still breathing, we had to make a resuscitation attempt.

"Dave - I'll tube him ... I think." I said, as I pulled out the intubation roll.

My equipment was set up - now all I had to do was find the mouth.

"Hey - where did he get an M80 this time of year?" was Dave's reply.

"Uh - you're not gonna try to treat him - are you?" asked one of the cops. I could see the little hamster-wheel turning slowly in his head. "That's really gonna make this crime scene hard to secure - if you move his body."

Translation: I don't want to do any more paperwork than I have to.

"Don't worry," I replied. "Even if we stabilize him - someone will still have to turn him to the sun and water him once a day."

"Huh - what's that supposed to mean?" asked the now bewildered cop.

"It means that he'll be a vegetable all the rest of his days." replied my partner. "Just call him 'Carrot-top' from now on."

"Fitzy - leave the medics alone." yelled one of the detectives. Thank god.

During the conversation, I continued to look for the mouth. By moving one red flap over here ... and this red flap like so - found it!

I snapped the intubation blade in the 'open' position - the light-bulb at the end of it shined a steady white. I placed into the oozy cavity, and was dismayed.

There was no visible structure to follow - no epiglottis, no vocal cords. Nothing.

Just then I saw a bubble form from a puddle of blood. I followed it with my endotracheal tube - to my surprise, frothy blood began to travel up the tube, which eventually stopped. The small bubbles on the side of the tube began to move up and down - just like a respiration. I listened over the chest while Dave attached the other end of the tube to a 'ambu' and began to 'bag' him. I could hear breath sounds on both sides of his chest. I was in. I inflated the cuff at the other end of the tube - to make an air-tight seal between the tube and his bronchus, and quickly secured the tube to his, err, head. After rolling him onto a spine-board, we transported him to a local hospital.

Turn him to the sun and water him once a day.

"the detectives I worked with at the local p.d. called them "splatter patterns" but, come to think of it, they may have been talking about gunshot scenes. "

But you'll never really know - will you? Cause all you do is hear about it.

[lame anatomy lesson deleted]

"You cannot ignore the music of the night...."

I can sure as hell ignore you - lameass fuck.

- Tae

(Originally posted on 7 Oct 1994)