This is the most inspiring thing I've seen in a long time. Humanity is awesome.
Katie's New Face
171–180 of 337 posts
Re: Katie's New Face
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
She went to her brother's place. It was his hunting rifle. Do you comment on stories about Nikki Catsouras that her family should not have owned a Porsche? Or a car at all?
If you're curious like me and wanted to know what happened to Nikki Catsouras, skip it. There are some _extremely_ gruesome images that come up when you search for the incident.
Yup. Also known as Porsche Girl.
Re: Katie's New Face
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps if there are no instruments at hand that allow the young to act on such a disastrous suicidal impulse, at least some of these incidents could be prevented.
If you want to go that route, then you'll need to also remove the following instruments: * Ropes or any kind of cords that can be used for hanging * Blades of any kind (kitchen knives, scissors, box cutters, utility knives, etc.) * Anything that can be sharpened into a point that can puncture flesh * Any kind of chemical substance that can be deadly in sufficient quantities. * Any bodies of water where one can drown…
To most people a gun is pretty much a button you can press and instantly end your life, and in the hands of a knowledgeable user that's about right. I think that kind of ease makes a gun very different from other methods you list, most of which require some combination of willpower, preparation, and endurance of pain and discomfort.
Re: Katie's New Face
#174Non-interactive version of the article can be found here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/09/face-tra...
Thanks, we've switched to that more textual link. The interactive version is pretty impactful, so people should probably look at both. That link is https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/09/face-tra... .
Oh wow, that is a different experience from the mainly-text version. The text version is missing a lot of images, it seems.
Re: Katie's New Face
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems to be a popular thought on hacker news for some reason, but seriously, there's countless ways to commit suicide. If your solution is to take away just one of the tools, you aren't going to get very far. Chances are there were pills in the medicine cabinet that could have been used as well. Or countless other ways that also take only a split second decision (and that's assuming she picked up the gun off the…
The method of choice, however, does have a significant effect on survivability or reversibility of a suicide attempt (pills in the medicine cabinet are a prime example, many people have been saved after taking a lethal dose of medicine) and the ease of availability also has a meaningful effect on the likelihood of suicide attempts; if people are forced to think about it some more, some of them reconsider (e.g. this v…
>While there are countless other ways to commit suicide, experience shows taking away just one of the tools can save many, many lives.
I have found two studies with that claim. One is going state by state (like there may be no other factors?) [1]. The second is comparing urban Maryland vs rural (if you've ever been to rural Maryland, you'd know comparing it to Baltimore is ridiculous) [2].
[1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/ [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/suicide-rates-mary...
Re: Katie's New Face
#176woah-also this really like-viscerally demonstrates the destructive power of rifles.
Yeah, so destructive she took a head shot and lived.
She lost her eyesight and several years of her youth; it's a safe assumption that many HN readers, my future self included, owe significant chunks of their careers and lives (pardon the redundancy) to those two things.
She - like a mentally-vegetative senior citizen on life-support - reminds us how little the word "alive" really means, by itself.
Re: Katie's New Face
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hear you (I also have kids) but I always feel like the level of hype here is 75% about that pretty, white "before" photo. Yes it is tragic but what about the 1000s of disadvantaged kids that yearly fall into crime and drugs, ruining their lives, being incarcerated or killed, because of institutionalized indifference to the poor non-white members of our society and the corresponding negative feedback loops that trap…
Stop seeing everything through a racial lens. It is the first time an incredibly complex surgery has been performed, the race of the person is irrelevant. If this surgery was in China and performed on a Chinese person it would be just as groundbreaking.
Uh it was the clinic's third face transplant and the world's 40th.
Re: Katie's New Face
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think plastic is an option. There isnt an artificial material that can replace skin. The options are to keep the mangled face, or replace.
I think monkeynotes was more talking about a high quality mask. After this article, I'm thinking I would feel the same way. I'm not sure I could handle going through this process, especially all the unending maintenance required afterward. I hope Katie and her family are continually keeping in mind how they are helping push medical science forward and benefiting future patients. That's a big part of the value of thes…
Besides the functional issues she has pre-transplant, there is the devastating daily effects of being seen as and treated like a monster by society at large. It would be bad enough to handle your own reflection in the mirror each day, but to know that everywhere you go you'd be treated as less-than, would be treated cruelly with some regularity, would be basically treated as sub-human by most people -- that kind of toll on ones psyche is immense, and there is little chance she'd ever have much quality of life.
If the choice is between being a monster guaranteed to be mistreated and abhorred by most people vs potentially being a somewhat decently normal-looking person, then I think there is no way that someone would choose the way of the monster.
Re: Katie's New Face
#179I'd like to think I could be as strong as this woman, but I honestly don't know if I could be... I don't know if a person should have to be. I hope the procedure can manage to give her some small semblance of peace.
I am what I can do: programming, music and road-racing. If I had lost even just my sight in the same manner as this young woman, let alone at the same age ... my only remaining desire would be to try again and aim better.
Re: Katie's New Face
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m only an EMT, but I can try to answer this for you. The organ donor was brain dead, but the heart continued to beat and a ventilator was used. The organs would stay perfused with oxygen and nutrients and the surgery would be performed as if the donor were otherwise alive. Surgery is inherently risky - risks include spontaneous bleeding or clotting that could abruptly end the organ recovery. I believe this is the s…
As an EMT do you frequently witness people being pronounced/determined brain dead? If so what does it look like? I can't imagine an EEG device being attached to each presumed dead patient to double check? Or is that in fact what happens to each patient dying in the care of a hospital? I am very fascinated about the possible technology involved for monitorinng the state of these organs while the face was being removed…
As EMTs we are trained to provide the best possible care for all of our patients unless very obvious signs of death are present - brain death is not something we really consider because that's something the hospital determines. Obvious signs of death include dependent lividity (blood settling to the lowest point in the body) and decapitation, among other things. EMTs are not qualified to make such judgements in the field (outside of a mass casualty incident and triaging) and opt to be "better safe than sorry" and let someone with an MD after their name and malpractice insurance worry about making the final call. I expect the signs and symptoms of someone with brain death would be indistinguishable from any other apneic unconscious patient without a pupillary response, but some of those can be saved, so we transport them all.
At the hospital, protocols for determining brain death vary depending on the institution, but we have more advanced tools than just EEG now. I see a lot of radiological investigations that measure cerebral metabolism with scintigraphy - here's an example of what that looks like with a poor outcome (I am not a radiologist by any means, and I explored this outside of being an EMT) [1]. Notice how the brainstem is dark but the rest of the brain isn't doing much. Other investigations such as some MRI sequences may prove useful to identify ischemic insults and damage that strongly correlate with poor outcomes. Based on the phrasing of your question, I would point out that these tests would only be performed on a patient where brain death were clinically suspected based on e.g. prolonged cerebral hypoxia from a drug overdose... not every dying patient.
I don't know enough about the medicolegal or surgical side of things to go into more detail there.
[1] - https://img.medscapestatic.com/pi/meds/ckb/59/26659tn.jpg
