Ep. 4.24 Stalker *SEASON FINALE*

[wildflower]

Yeah that didn't look like a surgical room, more a trauma/ER type room.

[riche]

00bomber said:

Only thing that annoyed me a bit were the medical inconsistencies with Sillman and Lilly being shot. How Stillman still mamanged to stand up and not pass out is crazy. Also he didn't appear to be in any pain.

Stillman's was a "through-and-through", the bullet broke the glass behind him. Lilly's may not have been, the bullet might still be in her and caused more damage.

Plus it is a way to simplify things. Stillman getting shot would have been a shock for the audience. Lilly, being the lead role, getting shot as well would have increased that dramatically. You don't need both characters fighting for their lives.

They can pretty much gloss over Stillman's injury if they want. I hope they don't.

[longislanditalian2]

From what I had read somewhere, some surgeries are performed without the patient being under. This was the case with Lilly, maybe they did stablize her I did happen to see a blood bag on top signaling that she was getting a blood transfusion. I think the doctors kept her awake so if Lilly was feeling something she could communicate to them.

She didn't look too bad,but I can't help think that the bullet went right through her. There was blood on the wall behind her.

[riche]

longislanditalian2 said:

She didn't look too bad,but I can't help think that the bullet went right through her. There was blood on the wall behind her.

You're right, I'd forgotten about the blood on the wall. They were concentrating on the entry wound of both Lilly and Stillman, whereas the exit wound is more likely to be bigger.

Of course all it takes is a few millimeters difference and you hit different internal organs etc. causing different damage. From what I've heard unlike the way Hollywood likes its "flesh wounds" it is almost impossible to shoot someone without breaking bones.

[longislanditalian2]

She might have broken her collarbone, but I doubt it damaged any of her internal organs since Lilly was awake and had only oxygen tube coming out of her nose. She did loose a lot of blood.

[kadoom]

00bomber said:

Only thing that annoyed me a bit were the medical inconsistencies with Sillman and Lilly being shot.

One could see it as disrespectful to both characters. Apparently they have the same through-and-through wounds, but Stillman can stand and later sit in the waiting area, while Lilly can barely move. So either you see it as the woman being weaker than the man, or his wound isn't seen as important as Lilly's, because the audience should focus all their worries on Lilly the main character and not get too distracted by Stillman.

A few days ago I googled around to find out what Lilly's and Stillman's recovery could look like. Some interesting facts:

1) I came across an article about gun shot wounds in westerns:
www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1971/2/1971_2_66.shtml

"Another sentimental curiosity of western mythology is the hierarchy, so to speak, of wound areas. Good guys are almost invariably lucky and get hit in the arm, the shoulder, or the fleshy part of the leg. Bad guys are much more likely to take it in the chest, abdomen, or back, which means that they are thenceforth dead. And nobody ever gets hit in the face.
[...]
The reason that heroes so often are hit in the shoulder is that this is fondly imagined to be a relatively “safe” area, well removed from the vital organs. One would think that the human shoulder was made of some selfhealing material, rather like a puncture-proof tire. The fact is that except for fat men and weightlifters, you can’t penetrate much of the shoulder without striking a complicated arrangement of bones, tendons, blood vessels, and nerves.
[...]
The speed of today’s high-velocity slug in effect sterilizes the outer surface and at the same time usually enables the projectile to drill a rather neat, aseptic hole through tissue and bone alike."

2) I found a nurse website where a writer had asked a question about damage from a bullet and recovery time etc.:
en.allexperts.com/q/Careers-Nursing-1527/bullet-wound-protocol.htm

Q:[...]What would be the treatment protocol for someone with a bullet wound? In this case, the bullet went straight through the fleshy part of the hero's side, just below the ribs. Would they sew the wound up or leave it open? Would they put drains in it? Would they do this in the emergency room, or take him to surgery? How long would a hospital stay be for such an injury? What could my hero expect in terms of discomfort and duration of recovery?

A:[...]Since the bullet went through the fleshy part of the side it would not of damage anything important and the muscle and tissue would heal with no problems. So they would just sew it up on the entry and exit part. This would be done in the emergency room. They would not need to put drains in it unless it has become infected. There would be some pain but nothing to severe and recover well he would probably be admitted to the hospital for a few days of observation and then released for light duty for about 2 weeks.

~~~~~

My take on Lilly's and Stillman's injury is that the writers used the cliché of the 'safe' wound, ignoring human anatomy and treating it like a flesh wound. No surgery necessary, only stitches and pain medication.

[Naj]

that's interesting, kadoom. I still don't understand how Lilly with her frame at that close range could take a shot like that...period. Disasterfreak is a doctor - maybe she could shed some light on this.

[longislanditalian2]

Me either, Lilly's so thin especially how her blood sprayed against the wall. The shot so close would have been fatal ( like Naj mention above), I still think Scotty accidently shot her. The bullet had to be from a far range not a close one. The timing didn't add up when Ed was standing there, he barely had enough time since when Scotty shot the glass and fired again there was no time to shoot Lilly.

[The Reverend Bizarre]

When Ed shot Stillman he was a good 15-30 feet away give or take. With Lilly he was maybe 6-10 feet away. Also it's still impossible for Scotty to have shot Lilly. He first aims the gun up to break the glass and then he shoots Ed. With as gung-ho as Ed was I do believe that when he heard the gunshot and the glass shatter he shot Lilly.

The only way Scotty's bullet could have hit Lilly is if the first bullet ricocheted against something (the ceiling) and veering towards Lilly. It is possible, but in this case unlikely.

Judging by the blood splatter on the wall I don't think she lost that much blood. She obviously slumped down against the wall causing that huge blood streak. The funny thing with blood is that a little can look like a whole lot. But then there is the factor of her going from deathly pale to just white after being shot.

Her wound wasn't too fatal, but the loss of blood did cause a lack of oxygen for her it seems. Which makes me wonder how long they had to wait for the paramedics. It's said that the loss of blood can and will cause a loss of oxygen vital to the eternal organs. Judging how Lilly goes from oxygen mask to nasal tube seems to suggest that she should be fine.

[kadoom]

xuchilbara said:

Judging by the blood splatter on the wall I don't think she lost that much blood. She obviously slumped down against the wall causing that huge blood streak. The funny thing with blood is that a little can look like a whole lot. But then there is the factor of her going from deathly pale to just white after being shot.

I'm with you, I don't think she lost that much blood.
Pale, clammy skin is a sign for shock. The body shuts down the small vessels of the skin and in the extremities to reroute the blood to the vital organs like the brain and the heart.
While a shock can be caused by blood loss, there can also be other reasons (although I don't know which one, if any, would fit in this case. I'll leave that for the medical versed forum members to decide).

[The Reverend Bizarre]

I was also for no apparent reason today poking my shoulder area and what do I notice, but that the area that Stillman and Lilly were shot? Oh yeh! There be bone there!

Oh well, I guess having Lilly shot in the hand, or pinky finger wouldn't have been as dramatic.

[jambled]

Okay so here's my take on it... Scotty shoots the glass to break it (bullet goes up) and the bad guy (oh poo pooe forgot his name) reflexively discharches his weapon (the lil shot). Scotty then shoots bad guy in the back (the kill shot). The shot that got lil must've gone through however I didn't see a bullet lodged in the wall behind her and the trajectory should have been fairly straight. From the blood on the wall however it appears there is damage to lils back... Implying the bullet came out. So no kudos to the reality department of the show.
Now to the discrepancies between lil and stillman's injuries;
Lil has a smaller, frailer body type than stillman. The way I saw the injury placement stillmans hit was a little lower and may have missed the bones but still taken out some tissue, arteries etc. Since there didn't seem to be much blood though, it doesn't look like anything major got taken out. Maybe the guy was just lucky; and he did get shot from a greater distance than lil did.
Now lil's shot, it seemed a lot higher and the fact that she has less space in her frame overall means there was probably bone hit. The pain may have been enough to send her into shock but there's also the psychological factor. Stillman has been to the war before, seen friends shot, etc. He knows better than most that he isn't invulnerable. But lil not so much... Sure, she deals with the remnants of death most days, has even had a gun pointed at her before but, and here's the important part: she's never been shot. She always walks away. I think she took romeo into the obs room with the idea that she may be shot but the knowledge of her past: she can always talk her way out of it. But this time she didn't. And that was the main reason for her sudden descent into shock. Not just the pain from the bullet but the fact that a place where she feels most at home; philly pd and in particular the interogation/observation room. The sanctity of these places has now been violated for her by a man she couldn't talk around.
The only thing I'm not getting has been discussed before as well... The hair. Unless she convulsed suddenly when the camera was on scotty, there's no reason for the gunshot to have completely mussed up previously unruffled hair.
As for the very last scene... A hallucination from the pain drugs they'd have her on. She'll be back next year, arm in sling, panadol in pocket.

[The Reverend Bizarre]

About the hair. If you watch again you will see Jeffries cradling her head. It's when he releases her head that her hair becomes all mussed up.

And I can believe the pain meds thing. When I had to go to the hospital because of stomach problems they gave me some sort of medication that completely put me out of it.

[riche]

I'm not even close to an expert in ballistics but is a close range shot more deadly than a long range shot?

I can understand a "point-blank range" shot being worse, but only because you are far less likely to miss you target. By the time the bullet hits the target it hasn't had time to be effected by wind or gravity.

In a long range shot the bullet will have lost momentum and started to tumble, probably causing more damage as it passes through the body.

[wildflower]

I agree with Jambled, also that some of these things that are being analysed so much probably weren't thought thru by the writers and producers well enough to hold up to this much scrutiny. Scotty was on the wrong angle to have shot Lil, plus she said "he shot me" not "you shot me", if it was Scotty they would have made it more obvious.

A bullet at close range would be travelling faster, hence most likely more damage, more volicity.

And it doesn't look like Lilly has actually reached surgery at the end. If you look closely there's another patient in a bed to her left, so it's not an operating theatre. That would also explain why she's still conscious.

[Disasterfreak]

5/22/07 at 4:21, 00bomber wrote:

Only thing that annoyed me a bit were the medical inconsistencies with Sillman and Lilly being shot. How Stillman still mamanged to stand up and not pass out is crazy. Also he didn't appear to be in any pain.

I don't really have any explanation for Stillman's lack of pain after being shot. A gun shot wound is a gun shot wound no matter how "through and through" it might have been. It would still have caused considerable pain. Hell, the momentum alone should have sent him reeling against the wall. But oh well. Creative license, I guess.

RichE wrote

Stillman's was a "through-and-through", the bullet broke the glass behind him. Lilly's may not have been, the bullet might still be in her and caused more damage.

That's sort of relative though. A MIGRATING bullet might cause further damage; usually a stationary bullet won't. It's the "going in" part that pretty much destroys everything. A through and through is popularly considered less serious, but it depends on what it nicks along the way. If it blows straight through your heart, lung, liver or a big blood vessel, you're pretty much done for.

Kadoom said:

My take on Lilly's and Stillman's injury is that the writers used the cliché of the 'safe' wound, ignoring human anatomy and treating it like a flesh wound. No surgery necessary, only stitches and pain medication.

I think you're totally right. I dunno if they'll go so far as to treat Lilly's wound so lightly, because it would be much more dramatic to have her hospitalized for a couple of days, but yeah, they're playing it "lite".

There's a thing about gunshot wounds. Almost everyone thinks getting hit in the chest is worse than getting hit in the stomach, but actually it's better. If you get hit in the chest and the bullet misses lungs, heart and major blood vessels, you really CAN just stitch the person up and give them painkillers. If it's nicked the lung and there's a hemothorax (blood around your lungs), you drain it with a tube and wait. If the blood flow slows, you hospitalize the person and just observe them. If the blood flow DOESN'T slow, you HAVE to do exploratory surgery to figure out where the blood's coming from. Whereas if you're hit in the stomach you HAVE to do exploratory surgery 100% of the time, because chances are, the bullet's perforated intestines, and by the time you figure it out (about 6-12 hours later) the peritonitis will be impossible to treat.

So, yeah, chances are Lilly won't need surgery and it WAS just a trauma room she was in.


Kadoom said:

I'm with you, I don't think she lost that much blood.
Pale, clammy skin is a sign for shock. The body shuts down the small vessels of the skin and in the extremities to reroute the blood to the vital organs like the brain and the heart.
While a shock can be caused by blood loss, there can also be other reasons (although I don't know which one, if any, would fit in this case. I'll leave that for the medical versed forum members to decide).

That's right. Although shock induced by blood loss would probably be the 1st thing you'd think of in someone who's been shot, just PAIN could accomplish about the same. It's called vasovagal shock.

RichE said:

I can understand a "point-blank range" shot being worse, but only because you are far less likely to miss you target. By the time the bullet hits the target it hasn't had time to be effected by wind or gravity.
In a long range shot the bullet will have lost momentum and started to tumble, probably causing more damage as it passes through the body.

Actually it's the opposite. When you fire a gun, the bullet doesn't just pop "straight" out--it pops "spiraling" out. That's why it causes so much damage. Since it's spiraling really fast, when it hits the human body it doesn't just do linear damage along it's trajectory, it sends of spiraling waves of damage to the sides too. Not an easy concept to explain--it's like it makes the tissues around the trajectory implode. The faster the bullet goes, the more spiraling damage it does.

Forgive me for not using the correct terms, I've learned all these things in Spanish and I can't always think of the right translation.

Wildflower said:

I agree with Jambled, also that some of these things that are being analysed so much probably weren't thought thru by the writers and producers well enough to hold up to this much scrutiny. Scotty was on the wrong angle to have shot Lil, plus she said "he shot me" not "you shot me", if it was Scotty they would have made it more obvious.

A bullet at close range would be travelling faster, hence most likely more damage, more volicity.

And it doesn't look like Lilly has actually reached surgery at the end. If you look closely there's another patient in a bed to her left, so it's not an operating theatre. That would also explain why she's still conscious.

Durn right on all accounts. Got nothing to add there.

[kadoom]

Thank you Disasterfreak for explaining! Good thing we have a doctor here

disasterfreak said:

Hell, the momentum alone should have sent him reeling against the wall.

Ah, see, I thought that was the only thing they did get right. The force of the recoil for the shooter should equal the force of the momentum for the one that gets shot (at least that's what I learned from the Hollywood special of Mythbusters). If Stillman would have been sent reeling against the wall, Romeo would have been sent flying backwards as well because of the recoil.

Stillman was in pain, it was enough to bring him down to his knees. He pulled himself together for Lilly's sake, but after she closes the door, he falls apart. A little. I'm afraid the writers wanted to save the most dramatic impact for Lilly, as nasty as that sounds.

[longislanditalian2]

I think Kathryn really had some great scenes. Her acting ability is tremdous, how she can rally tap into what Lilly Rush is feeling. This is one of my favorite S4 episodes ever

[The Reverend Bizarre]

Lilly and the group really like to stay late. Spot the clock on the wall when Ed and Kim walk in. It's 10:35pm.

[longislanditalian2]

Does anyone think before Lilly left she wanted to stay after hearing her mother say' Bye Baby'?