Monday, October 29, 2012

How Can a Patient Create a Makeshift Weapon in the Hospital?

I'm working on a story where one of my characters wakes up in a hospital, and I need her to be able to find a weapon that she can use in a future scene to kill something Rottweiler-sized.

What is she killing? Human or animal? Can she get close enough to touch it, or does it have to be from a distance? Ultimately, it depends where in the hospital your character wakes up, what shape they're in (ie, good enough to lift something heavy), and what you make readily available.

Access to a defibrillator would be very effective. One unsynchronized shock would do it.

Oxygen explodes with flame, for instance. The waterless shampoo the hospitals give patients is also extremely flammable. You can spray it and light the spray on fire, and voila! Flame thrower!

Most bed tables have glass mirrors in the table that pop up when you lift the tabletop. Mirror shard as knife.

Plastic sheets/Chux can be used for suffocation. Any tubing also would work.

If you wanted to go MacGyver, a saline IV spill and electricity might work.

An IV pole can be used as a weapon, and the top part (with the hooks) pulls out. That piece is usually about three feet long and could make a blunt stab (belly, maybe).

Good luck!

Questions? Comments?
Thanks to Crime Scene Writer for this question!
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Kelly has worked in the medical field for over twenty years, mainly at large medical centers. With experience in a variety of settings, chances are Kelly may have seen it.

Sometimes truth seems stranger than fiction in medicine, but accurate medicine in fiction is fabulous.
Find her fiction at www.kellywhitley.com.


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