Hollywood Flub-Ups: The dying breath

The dying breath

How many times have you seen that pivotal death sequence, where the character lives just long enough to gasp out his last words of wisdom to the protagonist. Often either giving the answer to the plot all along or one word short of it and frustrating the protag even more? I've seen it a few too many to count.

Our Flubber: Serenity (which still manages to be my favorite movie of all time)

Shepard Book has been shot. He's covered chin to belly button in fake blood. He has time to give Mal (Captain Malcolm Reynolds) all the benefits of his sage advice and swing the plot drastically sideways. Then he keels over and dies mid-sentence following some witty banter and a tear-jerking moment.

The trouble here? Book has a mouth full of blood and is wheezing and coughing. Which means... you guessed it. Lung shot. When the lung is punctured, the space between the lung and the chest wall starts to quickly fill up with air and blood, as the lung itself starts to fill up with blood. The person in question is going to feel like a fish out of water. He won't die instantly, but he sure won't be giving any sermons.

On another related note, Book also had one side of his mouth drooping. And since he didn't have any damage on that side of his face, I'm guessing they were going for a stroke. And I think you can figure out for yourself why that might make the sermon a bit hard to deliver.

Hollywood Flub-Ups: watering the unconscious

In this repeating column, I will explain how Hollywood (and various TV mini-series and shows) get it all too wrong.

Our first culprit: Legend of the Seeker (and yes, I know it sucks. Bare with me here)

The great wizard, Zedd (left), has been struck by an underworld creature and is unconscious. His trusty companions Kahlan and Richard (right) are sitting around worrying about him. Kahlan tilts a canteen of some liquid, presumably water, into Zedd's mouth while complaining that "his breathing is getting worse."

OK, OK. I know you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out where they went wrong on this one. People tend to breathe worse when you are drowning them.

For the love of Pete and all his Pete-like friends, please folks, do not have your characters pouring liquids into unconscious companions (unless they are secretly trying to kill said companions). Aspiration pneumonia or drowning is the much more likely outcome of that than oh, keeping the person well hydrated.