DO you worry about having to deal with an emergency during the ambulance strike later this month? Luckily films and TV contain all the medical advice you need.
Tracheostomy
If a Christmas guest suffers a crushed windpipe, stab a hole in the front of their neck and insert a biro casing. Or if you don’t want to damage a good biro, use a drinking straw like in the movie Nobody. Now able to breathe, they’ll be able to continue festive activities as normal.
Hysteria
If someone becomes hysterical – perhaps your wife is overexcited by the slipper socks with a bear’s face you got her – a slap in the face will instantly calm them down. Unexpected violence never makes people more panicked, as you might expect, and if it’s in countless films from the 1940s and the Doctor Who serial Claws of Axos it must be evidence-based.
Broken leg
According to cowboy films, all you need to do is to bind the leg between two planks of wood and the victim will be fine for a bracing Christmas walk in the countryside. There is literally no risk of a splintered bone penetrating an artery or developing a permanent limp. In fact after staying in bed for two days they’ll be able to run, jump, ride a horse and have shoot-outs.
Amputation
This is in loads of films like Master and Commander, so you should already be an expert. Like in the films, give the patient a totally inadequate glug of spirits, about a large G&T, make them bite on a wooden spoon and off you go with the hacksaw. Note: this is a traumatic procedure, so limit it to injuries where there is no other option, eg. a torn fingernail.
Stopped heart
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is in everything from Casualty to Lost via Jurassic Park, so it’ll be piss-easy. Just hammer away at the patient’s chest while counting out loud for some reason. If that doesn’t work, try an electric shock by connecting them to a plug socket and turning it on and off. This can be dangerous, so wear rubber gloves. You’ll know it’s worked when the patient initially appears to be dead, then just as everyone gives up hope they’ll move a finger.
Virus outbreak
The cure will be kept in the same unlocked chiller cabinet at the deadly virus. Just google ‘experiment to increase rage in monkeys’, get the laboratory’s address and pop over in the car. Pick up some extra stuffing and Baileys while you’re out.
Gunshot wound
As ultra-realistic 1950s westerns prove, bullets don’t do massive tissue damage and instead lodge harmlessly, usually in your leg. All you need to do is pop the bullet out with a knife, slosh on some alcohol, which you’ll have plenty of at Christmas, and the victim will be able to carry on with their festive game of charades.
