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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday December 27 2016, @06:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the The-Force-will-be-with-you,-always. dept.

Submitted via IRC for cmn32480

Carrie Fisher, the actress best known as Star Wars' Princess Leia Organa, has died after suffering a heart attack. She was 60.

Family spokesman Simon Halls released a statement to PEOPLE on behalf of Fisher's daughter, Billie Lourd:

"It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning," reads the statement.

"She was loved by the world and she will be missed profoundly," says Lourd. "Our entire family thanks you for your thoughts and prayers."

Source: http://people.com/movies/carrie-fisher-dies/

[UPDATE:]

Submitted via IRC for martyb

NPR reports: Actress Debbie Reynolds Dies A Day After Daughter Carrie Fisher's Death.

That means that Billie Lourd, who had a minor role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and was slated for a part in the sequel, Star Wars: Episode VIII, lost both her mother and her grandmother in the same week.


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  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 27 2016, @07:55PM

    by Francis (5544) on Tuesday December 27 2016, @07:55PM (#446426)

    I wonder how long until AEDs become standard on planes. Hopefully her death will shine a spotlight on the lack of equipment on many flights. It's not like the devices are that expensive either. The school I work for has one in the next room just in case and we're in town minutes from a hospital.

    If they were working on her with CPR, they must not have had a defibrillator on hand.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Dunbal on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:07PM

    by Dunbal (3515) on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:07PM (#446457)

    I wonder how long until AEDs become standard on planes.

    Defibrillators are only good for a very narrow range of life threatening heart rhythm problems. It makes me chuckle when I see how overboard Americans have gone with them. Yes, it's a useful tool and can save a life so there is something to the "but if it saves just one life" argument... However thinking they're a magic bullet that will save absolutely everyone is delusional. But that's politics, not medicine. What would be interesting would be to read an investigation into just how many lives have actually been saved by AED's installed in public places and administered by laypeople and compare that to say the cost of installing and maintaining this equipment.

    • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:46PM

      by SomeGuy (5632) on Tuesday December 27 2016, @09:46PM (#446481)

      It makes me chuckle when I see how overboard Americans have gone with them.

      That is because on fictional TV programs things like defibrillators, CPR, and removing bullets works almost 100% of the time. And the idiots believe everything they see on TV.

      • (Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 27 2016, @10:34PM

        by Francis (5544) on Tuesday December 27 2016, @10:34PM (#446490)

        The success rate for CPR in situations like this is pretty low. Adding an AED to CPR increases the survival rate from 14% to 23%.

        Considering how poor the survival rate is for out of hospital heartattacks, that's a huge improvement. But, unless you know where the person is going to be, you have to have the devices spread through the building to ensure they're available when need be.

        Despite the badmouthing if Americans by dunbal, emergency care in the U.S. is some of the best in the world.

    • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Francis on Tuesday December 27 2016, @10:27PM

      by Francis (5544) on Tuesday December 27 2016, @10:27PM (#446488)

      CPR is almost never effective and yet we train people on it. By your argument we shouldn't be wasting money on that either.

      A plane is precisely the place for this sort of invention. Even on a short flight it can take a half hour or more just to land during which time you can't be performing CPR. Trans Atlantic runs are even worse where it's a matter of hours before reaching a.c. airport.

      It may well be that it wouldn't have saved her, but CPR is barely effective. Even in hospitals it has a low rate of success.

      At the place I work there are hundreds of people nearby most days, so having one makes sense for the same reason that we have a firstaid out and fire extinguishers. Fire extinguishers are only for use in a small number of instances and require maintainance, but we have those as well.

      • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:56AM

        by Dunbal (3515) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:56AM (#446528)

        CPR is almost never effective and yet we train people on it.

        Incorrect. CPR is 70% effective if applied in the first minute of cardiac arrest. That is a lot closer to "almost always" than "almost never". You seriously want to argue that something 70% effective is just as significant as something 20% effective go right ahead but that doesn't make you right.

        • (Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:25AM

          by Francis (5544) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:25AM (#446588)

          It's 70% if it's applied within minutes, by professionals at a hospital. It's more or less zero if you're in the backcountry. Other situations are somewhere between, but CPR alone works 14% of the time, but even then, it's highly dependent upon having the care to back it up promptly. Usually, a crash cart.

          So yes, it's pretty much ineffective, you're not going to bring somebody back with CPR alone in most cases. The efficacy of CPR is completely dependent upon eeking out enough time for professionals to arrive with things like the crash cart and oxygen. It's hardly relevant to the situation where somebody is onboard a plane without immediate access to the ICU and as others have stated oxygen.

          It's rather dishonest to over-inflate the numbers because it's not convenient to the argument you're looking to make. I wouldn't personally consider 1/7 to be very good odds, especially not when technology is available to significantly improve the likelihood of survival. Even there, that 1/7 makes assumptions about the people who are performing it doing it right, and often times they don't.

          • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:00PM

            by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:00PM (#446648)

            It depends a lot on how cardiac arrest started. If it's a due to a clogged artery, then it doesn't help much because the heart can't restart, so the chest compressions are the only thing moving blood around. If, on the other hand, it's that the electrical signals stopped because of a lightning strike or other kind of electric shock, then the odds are much better, because once the blood is flowing the electrical signals can start again (in this situation, defibrillator is preferred, but if you don't have one, CPR is worth trying).

            My sister has been a wilderness-certified EMT, and is now about to graduate med school with a specialization in emergency medicine. CPR is absolutely worth trying if you're out of other options. Like any other procedure, it doesn't always work. Losing patients is part of the job when you're doing this professionally, even if you do everything right, but that effort improves the odds.

            --
            The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:39AM (#446525)

      cost of installing and maintaining potential cost of lawsuit for not having one around. That's the way things work in the US.
      (but the next step then becomes is, how much would an insurance product be to insure your organization, site or business for said situation happening, especially in states with liability limits in situations like this?)

  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday December 28 2016, @12:52AM

    by isostatic (365) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @12:52AM (#446517) Journal

    Since 2004, the Federal Aviation Authority has required all US commercial airlines to carry AEDs on passenger flights that are large enough to have at least one flight attendant and to train cabin crew in their use.

    • (Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:28AM

      by Francis (5544) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:28AM (#446589)

      Interesting, I took a look for that information, but the search didn't really find anything specific to the case. I found a few allegations of flight attendants refusing to use the AED onboard, but they weren't from a reputable source, so I ignored them.

      How does that apply to international flights though? Those are the ones where it's really important to have them as the flights are often times in places where you can't divert to another airport because somebody got sick, they also tend to be longer, which increases the likelihood of somebody having their illness onboard.

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:29PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:29PM (#446663)

      There seems to be this underlying assumption in the two sided argument that she died because of a cardiac rhythm problem almost certainly caused by not hooking her up to the AED when it was discovered. Meanwhile the opfor is pointing out that an AED is utterly useless does nothing at all if a large enough artery is blocked by a clot or whatever and the AED people are having nothing of that argument.

      My guess is the people talking about the miracle of the AED have access to a (possibly false) news report that she died of a verified cardiac rhythm problem or they're way more into her medical history than I am and she has a history of cardiac rhythm problems due to massive coke use or whatever and they're falsely assuming that if she has one heart problem its impossible to die of another separate heart problem (like blood vessel blockage)

      If the AED folk would provide a link to some report that its already determined to be a cardiac rhythm problem then that would kinda end the specific argument about her death.

      An AED is not a magic wand of "cure light cardiac wound" that you wave and any heart problem is magically cured. They don't actually do a hell of a lot except for nearly magically hands off automatically solving one very specific heart rhythm problem. Like if a patient's implanted pacemaker failed and there's a AED on board the survival rate goes from about 0% to about 100% if properly attached to the person quickly enough. But AEDs don't do jack for most vessel blockages (what you think there's a tiny toothbrush robot implanted that cleans the vessels?) or gunshots thru the heart or strokes or wtf else.

      There is one vessel blockage scenario where an AED will save the patient which is when the blockage kills the cells that are your natural pacemaker and the AED will keep them booted up until a pacemaker can be implanted. But it has to be a pretty peculiar blockage to kill those cells but not kill enough heart cells to otherwise kill the patient anyway.

      They're at the position of the hype cycle graph where they can do no wrong and can fix anything. Soon we'll reach the trough of the hype cycle graph where everyone knows they're nearly totally useless. The long term reality is they're useful occasionally, may as well have one around and hook it up.

      In the long run the idea of an external pacemaker only will probably get expanded into a med-kit like from a FPS that magically does a ton of shit to anyone who's really sick, so they're a cool "gateway drug" into the future, so the future is a good reason to support AEDs today even if they're mostly useless today. Someday AED version 2352.4 is gonna have on board blood chemistry testing and ingrown toenail robotic surgery arm and be able to remove your tonsils and/or perform vasectomies. Something like a super-AED is going to be the future of health care, maybe in 50 years. In that way, encouraging shitty does almost nothing version 1.0 is a good idea if for no reason beyond I can't wait for version 2.0 to be released on our way to that version 2352.4 mentioned above.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:29PM (#446662)

    Do note that the heart massage part of CPR is to provide pumping action when the heart itself is not working, while a defibrillator is meant to stop an irregularity in the electrical signals in the heart (fibrillation) that prevents the coordinated contraction necessary for good pumping.

    The two cases can overlap, but don't have to. Not all heart problems are due to irregularity in the electrical signals.