Medically-induced murder/death by IV??

[matrixrefugee]

Googled "medically induced death", which lead to a lot of doctor-bashing articles on natural health sites. Whut

Comments

[jaguarx13]

Actually, if the air bubble is large enough, it causes a vapor lock scenario, just like air in the fuel line of an engine. If the air embolus is large enough, when it reaches the heart, the heart has nothing to squeeze or gain purchase on, and blood flow stops. The heart stops next. There are many ways air can get into the blood stream - when blood vessels are cut curing surgery, if you ascend too quickly when scuba diving,and if air is injected through an in IV. How much air is enough to do damage (but not be fatal) - around 20 milliliters How much is needed to be fatal? In 1949 Dr. Herman Sander ended the life of a terminally ill cancer patient by injecting 40 milliliters of air - four syringes of 10 ml each. The Nazis also used it as a method to kill mentally ill inmates in the Meseritz-Obrawalde hospital in 1942. There was another spree of killings by air injections in Germany decades later when a nurse injected 60 - 115 ml of air into the veins of 15 terminally ill elderly patients, who all died. So yes, it is possible, and not just a literary trope.

Bajanowski T, Köhler H, DuChesne A, Koops E, Brinkmann B. “Proof of air embolism after exhumation.” International Journal of Legal Medicine 112 (1998): 2-7

Benedict, Susan; Caplan, Arthur; and Page, Traute Lafrenz. “Duty and ‘Euthanasia’: The Nurses of Meseritz-Obrawalde” Nursing Ethics 14.6 (2007): 781-794.

Cuvelier, Antoine and Muir, Jean-Francois. “Venous Air Embolism” New England Journal of Medicine 354 (2006): 25.

Yorker, Beatrice Crofts et al. “Serial Murder by Healthcare Professionals” Journal of Forensic Science 51.6 (2006): 1362-1371.

By the way, I've never read any Dorothy Sayers.