I think traction was more common in the past. Maybe these days the same function is served by an external fixation device?
It might depend on age, the location and how complicated the break is. Many of them require surgery. Traction is occasionally used but far less often than implied. If near the hip (as in elderly patients), the area under the skin is exposed to the air, nerves or blood vessels are involved, it is in multiple pieces, etc. than traction alone is unlikely to be enough.
My pet peeve here is the super smart and often very wealthy serial killer. Most of them have below average IQ.
Just watched an old Monk the other day featuring Dale the Whale. This trope exactly.
The killer from The Rookie, Silence of the Lambs, etc.
Nor are they charming.
And if they are intelligent, their socipathy will prevent them from having successful careers, etc. in most cases.
Yet another is men leaving their cancer-stricken or otherwise ailing wives or children, out of the blue. I’m sure many of you will disagree with me, but it’s something I just haven’t seen. If a split wasn’t something they would have done anyway, there are almost always warning signs ahead of time, usually involving some kind of abuse.
In September 1980, according to friends who knew them both, Gingrich visited Jackie in the hospital the day after she had undergone surgery to treat her uterine cancer; once there, Gingrich began talking about the terms of their divorce, at which point Jackie threw him out of the room.[261][260] Gingrich disputed that account.[262] Although Gingrich’s presidential campaign staff continued to insist in 2011 that Jackie had requested the divorce, court documents from Carroll County, Georgia, indicated that Jackie had in fact asked a judge to block the process, stating that although “she has adequate and ample grounds for divorce … she does not desire one at this time [and] does not admit that this marriage is irretrievably broken.”[263]
According to L. H. Carter, Gingrich’s campaign treasurer, Gingrich said of Jackie: "She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer…
Yeah, I know that story, and the kids, and the wife herself, have said that it was a lot more complicated than that, although that was a terrible thing for him to do. And this is n=1. Do you know these people personally? I certainly don’t. I KNOW it happens, but it’s not universal like it seems to be on TV shows, and there’s now an urban legend circulating that oncology nurses are warning newly-diagnosed women about this, as if they never heard of it themselves, and oncology personnel themselves are saying that it, it being warning women, doesn’t happen in their office. They will certainly provide information about support groups and social services to people who request them.
I’m going to keep politics out of the rest of this.
It’s common enough to be studied and there seems to be a correlation
I knew an otherwise seemingly very likable fellow that had an affair behind his dying wife’s back and was found out (I’m pretty sure she divorced him before she passed away, but it was quite awhile ago so my memory might be misfiring). I knew both personally through different venues, one more than the other. Both were very highly-educated white-collar professionals, well-respected in their respective spheres.
Add Billie Eilish to that list - she and her brother Finneas wrote “Ocean Eyes” and uploaded it to Soundcloud, for a high school music class project. Multi platinum, multiple-Grammy career ensued.
Here’s one I see all the freakin’ time, so I may have been mentioned already here…the heroic cop who tracks the bad guys to an abandoned warehouse or something, and they have a hostage, so they decide “there’s no time to wait for backup-- I’m going in alone!”.
As far as I’ve heard, every cop in real life gets drilled into them that if you encounter a dangerous situation, call and wait for backup. Barging in by yourself when the numbers are aganst you and getting yourself killed is not going to help the situation at all.
And if there is backup with fully armed police with vests etc our hero goes in before them in just his jacket, while the armed forces stand there just to point there rifles and wait.
And of course, Leading Man Cop has no helmet, either. Might muss his hair.
And if you have important information about a crime, you call the detective and say that you have very important information but you cannot tell more over the phone. Let’s meet later on a dark desolate place.
This reminds me of one that I cringe at every time: when a sitcom has a paintball episode, the masks are usually inadequate to begin with, but no matter what, characters will take them off while on the field of play.
“Keep your mask on!” is rule #1. It’s also rule #3, rule #5, while rule #7 is “If you see someone without their mask on, put you gun down and start screaming 'Blind man! Blind man!” as loud as you can."
Yep. Another reason why Silence of the Lambs is complete fantasy.
Same with handing over your gun if the perp has a hostage. Lower it? Sure. Maybe even holster it. But never drop and kick over to bad guy. They made this mistake recently on NCIS Hawaii , where the perp had them do this, but when they disabled his bomb, he then grabbed a gun.
…and then stand around outside for over an hour while the perp goes on a shooting spree.
But at least “all the cops went home safe that day”.
The ending of The Amazing Spider -Man 2 has one of the most bizarre things I have ever seen in a movie.
Basically the supervillain the Rhino is robbing a bank and the cops surround him as he exits to the street. The Rhino is basically in this giant robotic suit with heavy machine guns, rockets, it’s basically a military Mecha. The cops shoot at him but in his full armor the bullets bounce uselessly off him. He returns fire and cop cars are exploding left and right.
So the film cuts and less than 50 feet away from the carnage there’s just a bunch of already set-up metal police barricades and a bunch of civilians just watching this, and there’s cops manning the barricades to prevent civilians from getting close. Mind you, this is an active mass shooting scenario where if he really wanted to the Rhino could easily turn five feet to the left and just start murdering all the spectators with his 50 cal machine guns, not to mention shrapnel from all the missiles he’s firing into the cop cars. But no, the civilian spectators are just watching this mass shooting unfold like it’s a sports event, they don’t even had anything riding on this because it’s just a bank robbery.
I swear, civilians just watching during events we know people would be running for cover from happens way too much in fiction.
We just gave Van der Valk one more try last weekend, and… he’s out! Some guy has important information to give, so he tells the cops he’s coming over on a particular ferry. In a crowd of people. And the two cops don’t split up to find the dude. Of course, they find him knifed on the ground. The people making the show thought they were “clever” by showing this guy dressed up like the Unabomber walking right behind our knifing victim (beforehand). But … suprise! … it’s somebody else that knifes him! Since the cops never even looked at the Unabomber impersonator, it was just dumb.
Oh, and I guessed who one of the perperators was and what the (again) surprise! twist was less than halfway through the episode.
And the detective calls his girlfriend to tell her that he’s been hurt before and can’t go through it again. Yadda yadda yadda. Dang that show is baaaaaad.