When the most precise dexterity is so critical and means the difference between life or death in surgery, how do patients mid-operation just not instantly get horrendously injured or straight up die during a severe earthquake when they’re getting jostled
In: Biology
When surgeons are using scalpels, they are taking their time and being repeat careful, so the moment there is any movement they’ll stop immediately. It’s rare for an earthquake to suddenly happen at 100% with no tremors.
Also, all hospitals (in modern countries… not sure about in say 3rd world countries) have UPS (uninterruptible power supplies) so even if the power goes down, backup generators, or batteries will kick in to make sure life support machines, and lighting stays switched on, and will run for long enough to safely evacuate the patient.
If you’re a surgeon in the middle of an incision (which is the part where you’re most likely to do a lot of damage if you jiggle), you’re going to stop cutting the second you feel something’s amiss. Pulling back only takes a fraction of a second. Plus, it’s *relative motion* between the patient and the blade that causes damage, if the surgeon, scalpel, and patient all wiggle together you don’t get as much motion as you might think.
Your impression of how often this happens may be exaggerated. For a surgeon to be doing a critical part of the surgery when an earthquake strong enough to jostle the surgeons hands against their will is crazy small. We are talking about M5.0 and up. Even so the first tremors are enough to pause before the major shaking starts.
I mean, I dunno, but I highly doubt there are special earthquake protocols being followed mid surgery. In the scenario you’ve got in mind, all that happens is a.) nothing special, or b.) yeah, maybe the patient gets injured/dies. It’s an earthquake.
Not quite the same, but the fire alarm went off when I was getting a cavity filled at the dentist and they didn’t want to stop the work on my tooth so they just kept going. I don’t remember the exact reason they gave me, I think it had something to do with finishing before the local anaesthetic wore off.
Luckily it was a false alarm and the fire department turned off the alarm after ~5 minutes.
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