I was watching one of those police procedurals–I think it was Bones, but wouldn’t swear to it–and a medical examiner was performing an autopsy on a young man.
The ME had made the Y incision and peeled back the chest skin. He had further cut the ribs and sternum loose with a bone saw and removed this plate to expose his heart.
At this point, he realized the heart was still beating! The man had been slipped a mickey that simulated death, and he was just now coming out of it.
My GQ: accept as given that all of the above could happen. Would it be a survivable experience? The ME would of course summon emergency services as soon as he saw the heart beating, but I have to think at that point the man would have already been so massively exposed to infection and blood loss that he would have died anyway.
Apologies if this doesn’t belong in GQ; I haven’t posted in a while.
I agree. Until the brain or internal organs are actually detached and removed, I think it would be survivable.
In Stephen King’s vampire novel 'Salem’s Lot, a doctor conducts an autopsy on a man he believes to be dead. Turns out the man had just that day turned into a vampire. When night falls, the man sits upright on the slab, to the horror of the doctor. King doesn’t say, but it’s implied that the vampire then preys on the doctor.
It seems to me that it would be obvious on the first cut that the subject is bleeding. IANAP, though.
In any case, I think the chances of the subject (now “patient”) would be good, ignoring the impact of the drugs, which I couldn’t begin to assess.
An ME’s exam room should be pretty sterile. Admittedly it may not be up to the standards of an OR, but it should be pretty darn clean.
And yes, the ME is a physician, and knows what he or she did. I seriously doubt it would get to the point of seeing a beating heart, unless it was barely beating, not enough to make enough blood pressure to bleed much.
You say that like you’ve been there- how clean are the tools?
I have to imagine the saws and such are at least as clean as those in a butcher’s shop. To keep from smelling if for no other reason.
There was a recent thread that tread upon this very subject (how long a person would survive immediate loss of all bones). Without a rigid chest cavity, the diaphragm has no way to create a low-pressure zone to cause the lungs to inflate. The rib cage is kinda/sorta important.
For instance, my surgical pathology lab recently threw out a used cutting board that was still in pretty good shape. Knowing what’s been on that board and soaked into it over time, I don’t think you’d want to use it in your kitchen even if it had been run through an industrial washer, zapped with gamma rays and then soaked in bleach for 30 days.
Correct me if I am wrong, but wouldn’t you wake up if someone was cutting into your chest? I would think the pain would rouse just about anyone from sleep or unconsciousness.
