2020-04-01_Total_Film

IS IT BOLLOCKS?

Film Buff investigates the facts behind

outlandish movie plots.

THISMONTHKNIVESOUT

Q

In Knives Out, Ana de Armas’ nurse, Marta, accidentally injects

Harlan with 100mg of morphine with deadly effect. Medically

accurate or grossly misdiagnosed?

ALTERNATIVE

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WHAT? In Damien Chazelle’s heady LA romance, La La

Land, a wannabe actress Mia (Emma Stone) and wannabe

jazz guy Seb (Ryan Gosling) smooch in various old

Hollywood sites including this quaint funicular.

WHERE? Angel’s Flight, 351 South Hill Street,

Los Angeles, USA.

GO?This 1901 landmark in Downtown LA can be ridden

for a dollar, connecting California Plaza and Grand Central

Market. It doesn’t go a long distance – a bit like Seb and

Mia. Sniff. Thanks to Greta Finn.

Starting from a pain-relief perspective – if Harlan is in so much pain

he requires 30mg of morphine and 100mg of ketorolac every night to

get him to sleep, he would surely need pain relief during the day too.

So his daily dose of morphine is likely to be much more than the 30mg

he “usually” gets at night. For someone morphine-naïve (i.e. never

had any) then 100mg as an intravenous shot would be lethal within a

few minutes – as well as the pain relief, it depresses the respiratory

system and the person would pass out and stop breathing, or vomit

and choke on it pretty quickly. But for someone used to morphine?

Admittedly it is more than triple his usual dose, but I wouldn’t be

convinced that 10 minutes would be the cut-off point. In the UK, we

use the ‘pain ladder’ and work up pain relief from good old

paracetamol to stronger medications orally. Maybe if Harlan is in so

much pain, he could have a morphine patch instead? Slow release,

fewer side effects and no need for a port that might get infected, or

confusion about which medication is which.

Finally, I am not convinced that even a trained nurse would be able

to tell the difference in the fluids just by sight alone (as is suggested

towards the end of the movie). It is a safety risk that most doctors and

nurses are well aware of and that is why we check and double-check

vials before injection. But then, if the labels are switched... So, sadly, I

would have to say poor Harlan came to a sticky end for no good reason.

DRKATESCOFFINGS



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