I’ll cop to that. I was basing it off of American tv sitcoms
Every cop show, every crime scene. Cops wandering about in their everyday clothes and shoes, moving stuff around and picking it up - all fine so long as you put on one latex glove.
And don’t forget to go to the autopsy. There’s always something gross stuck way down deep in the victim’s mouth or ear that the pathologist missed.
The heroes are forced to hunker down for the night in hostile territory, and the group’s Tough Guy, who’s usually the only one with any outdoors experience, says, in a gruff tone, “I’ll take first watch”, as if he’s making a huge sacrifice for the team.
…dude, the first watch is the best watch! You finish it, and you get to sleep till dawn! If your were really a tough outdoorsman, you’d volunteer for one of the middle watches.
This was beautifully lampshaded in the comedy Game Night with Justin Bateman. He’d been shot in the forearm, wife needed to get the bullet out. She used a knife to make a slit, then was digging around quite a lot. Couldn’t find the bullet. At one point, Bateman turns him arm over for both of them to see the exit wound.
Not to mention that in many cases, it’s better to just leave the bullet in. It’s already done as much harm as it’s going to. Besides the damage caused by all that poking around, the bullet might just be plugging a hole in an artery.
Back in the late '80s, IIRC, I read a Readers Digest story (the magazine or one of those collected stories books?) wherein a brain surgeon was telling his war stories. In one, he told a patient, with the wife standing by, the bad news. “How long do I have, doc?” “Minutes.” Patient just took his wife in his arms, murmuring things like, ‘We’ve had a good life’ and was indeed gone minutes later.
Or the last one, because if the hours to be covered are an odd number, the last guy gets the long shift.
Nah. Any shift that lets you sleep straight through the night is better than a shift where you have to wake up and go back to sleep.
Pretty much everything I’ve read agrees that what really killed Pres. Garfield were the attempts to retrieve the bullet. Given that he lived for more than three months after the assassination shot, and people tried something new every few days to locate the bullet, including a number of exploratory surgeries, one led by a crude early attempt at some sort of sonar with a device designed by AG Bell.
Now, I don’t know that the bullet was plugging a hole in an artery, and it shifted, and he bled out. More like, his immune system was fighting the good fight initially, but new bacteria were being introduced every few days, until he was overwhelmed.
Actually, that’s my opinion, but when we had fireguard in basic, the last shift, the long one, was the least popular. I used to volunteer for it, and go to bed early, during our 45 minutes of personal time, assuming we actually got it that night.
Speaking of sleep deprivation, people on TV with newborns are NEVER as exhausted as people with newborns should be. Particularly about 4 weeks in. That’s the point where even fathers and adoptive parents look like zombies.
I’m assuming that fireguard is what we used to call camp guard - one guy from the platoon who’s up and in uniform, patrolling the campsite. We just used to do half-hour shifts, by bed, meaning you’d just wake up the guy on the cot to the right (or left) of yours when you’re done. Switching wasn’t really allowed.
Many cars in the old days had wheels that were held on by one big nut. One variety had wings and were removed/installed by smacking them with a brass hammer.
It may be an urban legend, but the story is that two films in the 1960’s featured said cars, and the U.S. government banned them shortly thereafter. The one film was a biography of dancer Isadore Duncan who was killed when riding in a car (Bugatti?) and her LONG neck scarf got caught in the wheel nut. The other film was one of the James Bond films (Goldfinger?) His Aston Martin featured a wheel nut that could be extended out from the car to tear up the tires on adjacent vehicles.
Early 1960’s MGB’s had wing wheel nuts. Later MG changed to a BIG hex nut, but still one nut per wheel.
YouTube has enough videos of real-life high-speed chases ended by spike strip to prove that even a speeding car will not automatically crash when the tires are blown. Even when the tires are in tatters and the car’s driving on rims, it’s still controllable.
Nostalgic?
Come to think of it, there was a story in the newspaper about 25 years ago, about a gay couple who had parked and gotten out of their car for a nature walk in a remote place, but one open to the public, and with marked trails.
They came back to find all four of their tires cut, and a group of about four menacing looking young men walking toward them. They didn’t debate the subject; they got in the car and drove as fast as they could on the rims to a location where more people were around, and then to the nearest garage, which allowed them to call the police (and probably their insurance).
I don’t know at what speed they were traveling, but I know the roads they would have used, and the limit was mostly 45, with a stretch of 55, so to not be a hazard, they would have needed to go at least 30, I’m estimating. I’m sure they ruined the rims, but I would have done the same thing.
Also there’s the high school jock who, peaking in high school, marries the hottest girl in school. Then he continues to party like he did in his high school days and lets himself go, while his wife keeps herself tight.
Yeah, but then the tough guy never wakes up anybody and keeps watch the whole night. Cut to dawn, the others groggily waking up while he is stoically still on watch. “Why didn’t you wake us up?” “Eh, you looked so peaceful, I didn’t have the heart”.
Which is dumb, because then the most capable member of the group is also the most sleep-deprived.
Were banjos playing?
The article didn’t say.
Heh. Yeah, you’re right.
That gets so annoying.“We have to take the bullet out, or he’ll DIE!” Why? People can live the rest of their lives with a bullet inside them. Plus, JUST taking the bullet out doesn’t msagically fix the nicked artery, or the damaged nerve, broken bone, or prevent infection.
It may have been crude, but it was correct. Bell showed where the bullet was, but the “I know more than you” doctors didn’t believe Bell.
Of course, as you noted, Garfield died from sepsis. His body was one large infection when he died, because the “I know more than you” American doctors didn’t wash up before poking around inside.
If garfield’s wound had be inflicted today, his surgery would have been outptient, and he’d have been home for supper.
They even did that in a Magnum PI, and it wasn’t just random moves, it was the Scholar’s Mate, IIRC. AND it was an important plot point!