My 10 Favorite (Inaccurate) Plot Devices (2 of 2)

My 10 Favorite (Inaccurate) Plot Devices (2 of 2)

1) If you get hit in the head w/ anything you will be knocked unconscious and wake up 15 min later


Worse offenders:
Every Action/Drama ever made


This is key a key plot device to so many shows, that to take it away would rock the makeup of action shows as we know them. Basically the characters need a way to render their adversary unconscious for a period of time without actually harming that person. After about 15 min and up to an hour or 2 they will wake up with a headache and continue doing what they were doing. Variations include what they were hit with (frying pan, baseball bat, butt of gun) and what happens when they wake up (nothing, tied up, in some precarious predicament eg tank filling with beer).

The problem is that hitting people in the head is not really a science and even if it were, the inexperienced frying pan wielding co-ed would probably not be very good at it. There is a fairly fine line for hitting someone in the head and knocking them out. That line lies between: Making them more angry and causing severe brain damage or death. So judge your use of force carefully. For most of what you see on TV, that falls into the piss people off with no real effect range, which is good for the actors but bad for the potential rape victims.


Even more impressive is that even if you do hit someone hard enough to do some real damage. It is likely that they will not be completely unconscious just really groggy and out of it, and that will only last a few minutes. Fortunately it is also fairly likely that they will forget what they were doing just before you hit them, so maybe you can convince them that they were not trying to kill you. Either way they should probably get to the hospital for observation because it is also reasonably likely that they have a slow bleed into their brain that could cause some serious damage.

So just to recap head trauma in order of force:
1 Pisses off attacker
2 Stupor (groggy out of it)
3 Coma (knocked the fuck out)
4 Persistent Vegetative State (come on pick up a newspaper once in a while)
5 Locked in Syndrome (can process information but completely paralyzed including speech)
6 Brain Death (manslaughter conviction)

You are aiming for #3, but just like bozos grand prize bucket game there are no rewards for being only 1 bucket off.


And while we are on the subject:
You may want to consider where in the head you hit your attacker, as that will also greatly effect your chances. A good solid blow to the front of the head will be a lot more likely to get you a #1. If you hit too hard at the back / bottom of the skull that will likely get you a 4 or 5 (note this is the preferred bad guy pistol knocking location. The side of the head might be a good bet also since they can't see you coming, or instead of confronting them with a crudely fashioned weapon, call the cops on your cell phone and hide in a locked area.


2) AEDs magically shock people back to life


Worst Offenders:
Flatliners, Every Medical Show Ever


AEDs or automatic external defibrillators are kind of magic. Some studies have shown that if you are having a typical heart attack, and are defibulated within 5 min that you can have as much as a 40% survival / conversion rate. Those are people who 15 years ago would have likely died. The problem is not with what defibrillators can do, but with what they cannot do. Defibrillators cannot bring people back from the dead.


In fact the most common hospital use on TV the beeping flatline (asystole) and shock back to life, that does not happen. What Defibrillators do is to take a heart that is basically having a freakout, and slap it so that it can snap out of it and get back to what it was doing. The hearts electrical system is kind of like bouncing a basketball. The electricity starts at the top of the heart (AV node) moves through the heart making the top squeeze. Then it bounces off of the floor (SA node) and comes back making the bottom squeeze.


That is the over simplified explanation, but even then can you imagine after bouncing the basket ball a billion times ≈20 years worth. Occasionally the heart will lose its place and instead of a nice steady basketball it will be like 100 little bouncy balls all bouncing around. Other times instead of a nice steady rhythm it will lose control and start going way to fast (Harlem globe trotter style). Either way what it needs is about 300J of smack down. It stops for a second resets and goes on its merry way. Meanwhile back in the real world you are loaded in an ambulance and a doctor tells you to get in shape. If there was not a heart beat in the first place there is nothing to reset and you are probably dead.

The other big problem is that if you have been shot, or had any other sort of trauma (ie some jag bag hit you in the head w/ a 2x4) the defibrillator will not help at all. In fact you should not even put it on. Traumas are just another small part of the huge list of ailments for which the AED will have no effect. They are very good at what they do and getting better all the time, but that is all they do, reset the basket ball.

And while we are on the subject:
Makeshift items cannot be used as defibrillators. Even in a pinch, car batteries, extension cords, and computer monitors CANNOT be used as defibrillators. Also defibrillators cannot be used to jump your car or revive slowly dying robots. Sorry johhny #5


3) If you shoot a hole in an airplane everything will get sucked out


worst offenders:
True Lies, Airforce 1, Snakes on a plane?


This is another one where people may find it hard to believe, but most airplane manufacturers actually try to make their planes as safe as possible, and that includes not making them suck out all of the passengers and seats and eventually disintegrating upon being shot by a small caliber bullet. In fact military planes have been getting shot at for years, and many of them manage to survive with numerous holes in them. Some even continue in service with a little patching and a good once over.


So what would happen? Well if the shot the metal depending on the bullet it may or may not make it through the inner and outer shell and if it did it would just leave a small hole. the pressure would slowly leak out and depending on how fast those Oxygen masks might drop down (remember to secure your own mask before helping children). If they did shoot a window and it did break (again not a certainty) the seats by that window would be very windy, and you would probably want to move away from them, and again the O2 masks would come tumbling down. In either case you should be more worried about who has a gun and why they are shooting at people (damn TSA).


In either case the pilot would reduce altitude so your ears would stop bothering you, and reduce the speed so it is not as windy. Maybe the stewardesses would cover up the hole with something, if they were nice. You would land safely at the closest airport, and hopefully the jackass with the gun will be arrested. In either case the only thing that will be sucked out are your cocktail napkins and loose pages of your sudoku book.


While we are on the subject:
What ever you think of the TSA they are really trying to keep guns and explody things off of planes. That should help some, or at the very least we will not have to worry about a knitting crisis.


4) People are fragile and die very easily or not at all


Worst offenders:
Anything with Setven Segal, again w/ the Rambos

Have you ever noticed that when bad guys get shot in movies they always just fall over dead. No screaming, no laying on the ground twitching, just dead. This is another one of the clean baby myths that in order to keep the audience watching and not throwing up, you have to just pretend that a single shot will kill most bad guys with out much mess.

In reality people and most mammals are actually pretty sturdy. Now guns are very dangerous and could still very easily kill you but in terms of the places you may get shot there are really only 2 that are drop to the ground fatal. First is the heart, and even then it will have to be specific parts of the heart. The other is most of the head. Even with the head though there are many places that you could be shot and go on living for a minute up to forever. The rest of the chest and abdomen is going to be a minimum of 2-3 min of bleeding and gasping. Below the rib cage you could probably even make it to the hospital on your own depending on exactly what got hit on the inside.

Conversely, if you are the good guy or a particularly high up bad guy you can probably survive several shots without much concern. Fortunately you will likely be shot in the arm or leg (see bad guys suck at shooting). Clearly a day ruining experience for most, but you can brush it off and kill 20 or 20 more people with your bare hands


While we are on the subject:
Killing people with your bare hands is not as easy as it looks. One, usually they don't want to be killed, and two necks are surprisingly more difficult to break than a handfull of spaghetti. Perhaps bad guys in addition to their poor shooting skills and desire to be shot also have unreasonably weak necks. They should really get into another line of work.

5) If you hold a lighter to a sprinkler all of the sprinklers will not go off

Worst Offenders:
Die Hard, Lethal Weapon 4, Matrix, Changing Lanes


This one happens so often that you just assume that is how sprinkler systems work. It is not. 99% of sprinkler systems function on a thermal head activation system. That means that if there is fire under one head, that head will go off and put out the fire. If the fire gets bigger and hits another head that head will go off as well. I will not bore you with the details (toooo late), but suffice it to say most companies with 100s of computers do not want everything getting wet because some jag bag was dicking around with a lighter.


What will happen when you set off the sprinkler is that the alarm will go off and everyone will have to leave the building. However based on my recent fire alarm experience unless there is visible smoke about half of them will not do anything or will look around for what is causing the alarm to go off. So even then you might look out of place if you are running for the door, while everyone else is looking around blankly. You would probably have been better off pulling the fire alarm. Also, pulling the fire alarm has absolutely nothing to do with the fire sprinkler system, except that they both have fire in the name.


While we are on the subject:
The sprinklers are actually only designed for a certain # of head activations based on the size and type of building. If any more than that go off they will not be able to shoot out as much water, to the point where if they all went off it would probably be mostly just be a bunch of dribbling heads. Also do not pull the fire alarm unless there is a fire. Aside from being against the law it really pisses off the firemen.