Polite Dissent

The Amazing Spider-Man #529 “Back in Black, part 1 of 5”
J. Michael Straczynski, writer
Ron Garney, penciler

Aunt May has been shot by a sniper in the left side of her abdomen. Let’s speculate for a moment about what injuries she might have suffered. The spleen is on the left side of the abdomen and an injury there can lead to a great deal of blood loss. There is also a kidney on the left and an injured kidney can lead to all kinds of problems. There is lots of bowel as well, and a perforated bowel is high risk of infection and a surgical emergency. If the shot were angled a little toward the center then other key structures would be vulnerable including the spine, aorta, and pancreas. The matter of ballistics is also important. Did the bullet go clean through? Did it fragment inside of Aunt May, or maybe bounce around in the abdomen her causing even more damage?

Peter Parker is unwilling to wait for the ambulance, reasoning that it will take too long to arrive and he can get her to the hospital faster. That’s probably true — to a point. While the ambulance may indeed be slower than Spider-Man, it has other key assets. For one thing, it has a trained medical crew that can stabilize Aunt May and at the very least start her on IV fluids and apply direct pressure to her wound. Additionally, the crew is going to make sure she isn’t injured further. Remember our discussion about anatomy? She could very well have a spinal injury. Swinging her across the rooftops — no matter how fast it may be — is not a good idea for an injured patient. The ambulance crew will also be in contact with the hospital so May will get quick and appropriate care when she arrives.

Speaking of arriving at the hospital, what does Peter do? He crashes through a second-floor window and places May on an empty bed, then leaves. This really isn’t a good idea. I’m sure the nurses and staff of the second floor are good, but an elderly woman with a gunshot wound is not something they are equipped or trained to handle. There’s probably not even a doctor on the floor. The hospital has a department that is specially trained, staffed, and equipped to handle emergencies, and it’s called — you guessed it — the emergency room. Any time that Peter might have saved getting May to the hospital has been wasted as the second floor staff scrambles to find someone who knows how to treat gunshot wounds. In all likelihood, they’ll just wheel May down to the ER, where she should have gone in the first place.

And stop with the plasma! I know I’ve covered this again and again. Plasma is not transfused except in very specific circumstances, and this is not one of them. Aunt May needs type O blood now while she is typed and crossed and prepped for emergency surgery.

A little while later, Mary Jane shows up at the hospital looking for May. The doctor who treated May just happens to overhear the conversation and comes over to talk to Mary Jane. This would never happen in real life. First, the receptionist is not allowed to give out any admission information at all; it’s illegal thanks to a little federal law known as HIPAA (and wasn’t likely to happen before HIPAA either). Similarly, the doctor’s not going to tell Mary Jane anything. He has no way of knowing whether or not she’s truly related to May — for all he knows she could be one of the gang that shot her in the first place and is now looking for her to finish her off.. There’s no way that he’s going to divulge sensitive medical information in this situation. If anything, he’ll delay her until the police arrive and ask her what she knows about how an elderly lady got shot and then dumped at the hospital.

Finally, let’s take a look at poor Aunt May in her ICU bed. Overall, it’s a well drawn scene, but two mistakes immediately jump out at me. First, patients who are on ventilators are intubated (they have a breathing tube inserted); they don’t use a mask. It’s a matter of resistance: the ventilator needs to force air into the patient’s lungs so they can breathe. A short wide tube offers the least resistance. A mask offers far too much. I’m willing to give the artist a pass on this mistake, since it’s not commonly understood, but not the second mistake: why is her bandage over her gown?