I could understand it...

[ffutures]

...when Angel thought he couldn't give Buffy artificial respiration because he was dead, despite the fact that he could talk and obviously inhaled to do so, because he was essentially an ignorant 18th century idiot.

Owen Harper is a 21st century doctor...

Words fail me.

Comments

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Also, Angel is living in a magic universe where the power of breath as of blood is not merely the actual air or fluid but the spiritual essence of which the materiality is the mere accidents (to be a bit Thomistic for a moment since the magic in Whedonverse is clearly rooted in Aquinas and Aristotle's ways of looking at the world.) Owen is living in a rational universe, allegedly - and yet emotionally his inability to help made perfect sense. He could have helped the dying Parker but his sense of himself as dead meant he could not believe in his ability to do so.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

OK, I can maybe buy that as an emotional reaction - hope he gets over it though, before it kills someone he works with.

And mystic/demonic/alien pregnancies next week - more Angel parallels!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Owen Harper is living in a rational universe? Have you actually watched the show?

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Ok, yes, it's a ramshackle mess of a universe full of get-out-of-jail free cards, but it is based at least notionally on the idea that everything can be understood and that even fairies can be fitted into an ordered scheme of things. I don't mean by rational that it is a sensible universe, because I think we can agree that it is sometimes quite silly, but that it plays by rational rules.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, okay, fair enough, I reckon. I am still inclined to mutter, "How can it be a rational universe, when it's populated so exclusively by irrational pillocks," but then I pause to look around me.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Ah. This is what I keep trying to tell a friend about classic Who and not finding the words. Yes, it was science fantasy rather than science fiction, and sometimes it didn't make sense even by those standards, but it was based on the idea of a rational and rationalistic universe where things could be made to make sense. Except apparently when David Whitaker was writing it.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

You are confusing ambition with achievement.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I haven't noticed any rational rules in the plotting of Torchwood. Rational implies that actions have the same consequences and that there are explanations. Mostly, they don't bother with either. The show totally lacks any self-consistent internal logic.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

Isn't there some need for carbon dioxide in the exhaled breath that triggers the required response or something.

Has really distant memories of this as an explaination for Angel's not even trying.

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that he shouldn't have tried, but even if he had it wouldn't have worked.

People breathe to expel excess carbon dioxide, and his breath would have been the same chemical composition as the air in the cave already, so it would not have triggered Buffy's breathing.

The same is possibly true of Owen, but I would have thought Doctor-ly instinct would have over ridden that. (What episode are we talking about?)

[vitruvian23.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that he shouldn't have tried, but even if he had it wouldn't have worked. People breathe to expel excess carbon dioxide, and his breath would have been the same chemical composition as the air in the cave already, so it would not have triggered Buffy's breathing.

Nope, not so. CPR breathing is intended to get oxygen into the lungs, the CO2 is a necessary evil and doesn't really serve as a trigger.

[secondsilk.livejournal.com]

Ah. That's cool. I will have to remember. It certainly makes more sense, it's just harder to use as retcon.

Excess carbon dioxide is the trigger for breathing normally, I thought, rather than too little oxygen. I remember an interview with a guy who'd almost died because he'd inhaled too much helium. He was suffocating because he had too little oxygen, but had no desire to breathe - in fact, the first few breaths he forced himself to take were painful.

[parakkum.livejournal.com]

Generally with rescue breathing and CPR as well, the point is simply to ensure adequate perfusion of the person's system with oxygen until someone with proper medical equipment arrives. Despite the inherent drama of "Live, damn it, live!" and bringing someone back to life with some breaths and a good couple pushes at their chest, most of the time CPR just keeps them not-brain-dead long enough for someone to get there with a defibrillator (if they've gone into ventricular fibrillation) or with drugs and then maybe a defibrillator afterward (if their heart has actually stopped beating).

But it's not so dramatic to have Xander give CPR for half an hour while Angel runs to call 911, only to find that Buffy can't be resuscitated anyway.

(And yeah, I always read the "I have no breath" as some kind of statement about how the metaphysics of the Buffyverse work.)

[dsample.livejournal.com]

The CO2 being required for artificial resperiation is a myth. Generally in a hospital, or a properly equipped medic, they use a mechanical respirator, with pure oxygen.

Some current thinking on CPR is that the breathing part isn't even necessary, and may actually be counterproductive. Just pressing on the victim's chest moves enough air in and out of the lungs to oxygenate the blood.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I watched it with the volume turned down. It probably made about as much sense that way.

[whl.livejournal.com]

It just really doesn't make any sense; he doesn't decay, but he can't grow any new cells. He's a zombie, with all the problems of cut up bits, and if he gets a bad hair cut, that's it. He'll have to wear a Toupee. But his eyes are wet; if he dives in the harbor, he doesn't suffer any ill effect. In theory anything that encourages bits of him to hold on more loosely should be a bad thing. (And who hasn't stayed in water long enough that they lost a layer of skin?)

Yeah, the fact that he can talk says he SHOULD have been able to do CPR. Just think of it as yelling, Owen.

I wonder what would happen if a rich guy decides to see if his kidneys work in a transplant.

Ah, well. It was good to see Richard Briers again. I hope he didn't need that bed for real.

[vitruvian23.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it occurred to me as I watched that not only could he do it if the bellows of his lungs were working well enough for him to speak (and sigh as much as he did through the whole episode), but that it would actually be *more* effective because his lungs wouldn't be stealing any of the oxygen from the air.

Of course, given that the old guy had an oxygen mask *right there*, it would have made more sense for Owen to secure that and concentrate on the chest compressions entirely. He probably also either carries epinephrine with him or could find it in the guy's medical supplies pretty easily, for a real chance at resuscitation.

If he has no blood flow, I suppose it's the weird glove energy not only sustaining his nervous system, but also on which his muscles are running - they're certainly not getting ATP and oxygen. If I were him, I'd be worried about doing all that running, on the chance that conservation of energy applies and every joule expended on unnecessary exercise shortens his new 'lifespan'.

[darransims.livejournal.com]

Basically it has leapt the shark, again!