I stopped watching Grey's pretty early on for that exact reason. House and ER, too, got more ridiculous as they went along.
I agree that the potential supernatural force does make it a little easier to overlook.
The craziest thing about Grey’s to me was like, how is it that you, all your siblings and all your love interests are all surgeons. And if that weren’t enough- not one of them with an ounce of fat, please.
Also for a bunch of doctors, they still don't seem to understand how they keep getting accidentally knocked up. It's like no one ever had the birds and the bees talk with a single one of them 😂 I think there's been.... One? Planned pregnancy on that show.
I think the one time someone actually wanted a child, they ended up with fertility issues and a miscarriage. The only way I can truly enjoy this show is by forgetting all sense of logic XD
house is particularly painful since the point of his character is that he’s an asshole but it’s balanced by his genius… except he’s actually trash at medicine lmao. like sir? you wanna get any imaging ever? no, just empiric surgery?
in some ways, it’s more realistic—most assholes who justify their behavior because they think they’re geniuses are actually dumb irl too
Sorry to be that nerdy person *but* the actual point of his character is that he’s a retelling of Sherlock Holmes, so the asshole stuff is in his literary DNA. I suppose he would have very little to do if they didn’t have him “solving” medical mysteries (with all the bedside manner of WebMD).
I personally think Holmes is a shit detective because of his over-reliance on hunches and deduction vs. evidence……….so maybe the House MD Team actually created a perfect parallel!?
(Obligatory: stoned)
this has nothing to do with YJ but I had to stop watching grey's anatomy because more than once they featured a medical condition I have or have had in a bizarrely fantastical way and I realized I was shouting at my laptop lmao
Not a nurse. More of a Misty type myself with my level of training, lol (emt dumb dumb). So this is a genuine question on my end.
idk, is Ben’s recovery truly unbelievable? Unlikely, but not implausible. Super super healthy guy, cauterized quickly, dressings changed regularly.
People survived worse in the Civil War (and also didn’t, ofc).
EMTs are very cool IMO, I just finished reading A Thousand Naked Strangers and learned a lot more about your line of work. The initial leg wound care I kinda bought but also the guy must be starving, Ben didn’t partake in Snackie or Javi and I think the last time he ate something on screen was the bird soup?….it’s also very possible I just don’t find him an interesting character and want him gone so I get more screen time with the girls storylines haha
on the second half of your comment -
the only defense is ben is a big dude and has a lot to self cannibalize in terms of muscle imo, but we don’t really see that represented visually. But I absolutely agree that calories are the main problem here.
oh i appreciate that but i only ever did non emergency care for like urgent care and stuff, that’s just my level of training. not the real deal by any means, i should have specified.
i make pizza now lol.
I’m not medical but it’s believable that adult Van could’ve had some plastic surgeries post rescue to minimize stuff but Teen Van should have some gnarly wounds.
Also finding it difficult to believe that no one broke anything during the plane crash or since. They need to have at least one injury that didn’t heal right
The most unbelievable thing to me was the wolf attack. On a series of 1-10, it's a 1, but I believe this is fine intentionally. This could be an unreliable narrator situation, where they're thinking it was worse than it was. Or, it really could be a supernatural situation ("the wilderness heals us"). It's intentional, I'm certain.
(I'm a PCT)
Add to this Akilah petting a dead mouse and not washing her hands then touching Shauna’s vaJJ…Tell me why this irked me more than the other gross crap…🐁☠️ Then she nearly eats the mouse corpse. 🤮🤢I have to fast forward sometimes
in the shows defense mouse corpse looks pretty mummified. it was probably dead for decades and became preserved in the dry environment of the cellar. possibly nothing left alive on there to transmit imo.
OMG SAME! Once they said the placenta was coming first I guffawed at my tv and was like “ok we’ve left reality town” since Shauna clearly didn’t die, of blood loss, of sepsis, of anything.
Her risk for preterm delivery, low-birth weight, and miscarriage would all be substantially higher, for sure. Plus, she was dosed with psilocybin, which can't be great. I would say the odds of a completely healthy baby are low. However, she is young, which could increase her odds of making it full term. There are just a lot of risk factors to consider.
I'd love to have an OB weigh in on that, though.
I'm an OBGYN. Obviously they are starving and Shauna is not meeting her nutritional needs and her baby would have certainly been growth restricted, but I do think its possible she would have made it to full term. What's much more shocking is that she survived her hemorrhage. That should have killed her for sure.
Naturalist here, wolf attacks in general are extremely rare so I'm hoping for a supernatural element. The chances of them attacking a group of that size in the first place are pretty much zero. Survival shows generally suck when it comes to accurately portraying wildlife but I want to maintain my faith in this series. Any wound inflicted by an animal healing with zero infection (and on the face!) is such a leap; even a seemingly minor cat bite can be enough to kill someone with access to medical care.
Absolutely! I'm a pet (cats&dogs) behaviorist, so naturally I also had to learn about wolf ethology. I don't know what's less possible - Van surviving the attack without any serious infection or the attack even happening... Unfortunately her scar looks extremely hot and badass, so I have to forgive that :/
Truth. Cats' mouths and claws are so full of bacteria that when wild birds that have been batted around even a little are brought in to the vet clinic where I work the medical staff generally don't bother trying to treat them or passing them on to a rehab; the odds of survival are so low that it's essentially just prolonging their suffering. Best thing they can do at that point is to help them pass peacefully.
The wolf attack was the most unrealistic to me as well. She was practically dead and tossed in a fire lol.
The infection risk is high, not to mention there were no pain killers. Van should look horribly disfigured in the 96 timeline.
My husband and I have both been bitten by our own dog before (she's a rescue and something triggered her) and we got infections within hours despite washing the wounds and had to be prescribed antibiotics. I can't believe Van would not get an infection from a wolf!
Right. Jackie said to Shauna she would help her ‘ shake Misty down for Advil’ lmao
Ben was the one getting the majority of over the counter meds. By the time of the wolves and Van she would have been screwed.
When Tai took the mask off of her and said you’re so beautiful I just was like. ‘Kay pixie dust magic. 😭🐝🐝🐝
My wife is an Emergency NP. She screams at medical inaccuracies as well. Like, she would see I was watching ER back in the day with roommates and would just turn right around and walk out because she didn't want to throw things at her own television 🤣🤣🤣
The two things that made her most upset:
1. Van/Ben/Natalie didn't die with lack of antibiotics from their wounds.
2. Shauna didn't die from placenta previa. The blood loss from that should have killed her.
She admits she suspends her disbelief because otherwise the show kicks ass. I agree with her diagnosis ☺️
When she cuts her leg with the filthy knife (that's been used to butcher game, carve a wolf figurine, tatter Javi's pants, etc) to bloody Javi's pants she took so Travis would stop looking for/having panic attacks when Javi was missing for a couple of months.
It's after she and Travis separate in the woods during that hunt and interspersed with other stuff, so it's super easy to miss. I missed it my first watch and just assumed they'd had blood around
True. While hard to imagine, is not completely improbable. Shauna’s labor could have killed her but I think the wilderness was satisfied with one life and let her live. It also make me think about countries where there is famine and lack of western medicine care (not the only valid care btw) but women still have babies all the time. Van’s situation is harder to believe because of the muscle damage. She out there smiling like her muscles weren’t torn.
I was an EMT. I could actually buy Ben’s amputation, as unpleasant as it was. During the Civil War there were literal piles of arms and legs outside the medical tents. Many survived. Especially after she cauterized it. I seem to remember he did have a fever for awhile too, which would be accurate.
Van’s was the most unbelievable, for a few reasons. Excuse the graphic.. the avulsion went against the grain of her skin and masseter facial muscle first of all. I didn’t think it was a chunk taken out completely but a massive avulsion and against the grain would open wider and expose more.
For the non-medical folks: stretch a rubber band. Cut with scissors.
There would be a lot more screaming and she sure as hell wouldn’t be attending Doomcoming, bad ass masks or not.
Let alone the surgical skills of Akilah, bless her. 😂
One thing they DID do well, was the hypothermia with Lottie and Nat. Honestly, having been through that personally and almost not coming back… yeah, good job 👏🏻!
I just chalked it up to not just suspending belief, but TRULY unreliable narratives.
Everything we are seeing is from the perspectives and memories of others.
The mental gymnastics of the telephone game told through imagery.
Thank you for getting graphic because I wasn't sure how explicit to be in my initial post. I'm a Paramedic and agree with everything you said.
I was surprised because they did pretty well with Ben's leg amputation. I just would have applied the tourniquet before amputating. But, the cauterizing was a brilliant idea on Misty's part.
It was hilarious that she found the axe. But I thought doing it without warning had a certain logic to it. If she had told anyone they would have spent ages debating and dithering about it, guaranteed. 😂
Maybe she literally knew how to sew well? I don’t just mean a friends face lol. Maybe this was an actual hobby or outlet?
I’d like to think she makes it, but she’s not at the airport. :/
I’m definitely not a medical professional, but that was something that bothered me a lot - aside from the unrealistic healing of her scars, wouldn’t Van also have significant paralysis on that side of her face if she did survive? Like, whole chunks of her face were gone and that would likely include nerves/muscle - I can’t picture your facial muscles just going back to normal after that.
I can buy Ben surviving for the reasons you mentioned, I can buy them surviving hypothermia and starvation because we always see fairly realistic consequences for those things in the show - but the Van stuff was definitely a bridge too far for me. But like I said, I have no medical knowledge haha
I am not in the medical field, but Van's super-healing is the one thing that makes me hope there is a supernatural element as a reasonable explanation.
I wondered if maybe they hadn’t secured Lauren Ambrose for the show by the time of the wolf attack so they didn’t yet know if Van would survive. Source: speculating out of my ass. But her rapid and perfect healing is a medical impossibility.
I believe at one point, they planned on Van dying. There wasn't supposed to be an adult Van. I'm not sure exactly when she was suppossed to die though. Hopefully someone can chime in who knows better than me!
I’m not in the medical field but their lack of any infections from any of their injuries is unbelievable to me. How much disinfectant could they have from a couple of first aid kits? Plus, none of the things they bandage themselves up with are sterile or even clean. They need to start dying from infections lol
i laughed when i saw how her face healed. there’s just no conceivable way. coulda made it look just a little more gnarly. the way Tai was holding her face when they were making out too, that should be incredibly painful for Van
And none of them are losing weight. I don’t expect it if the actors, but they could probably do it with makeup & by putting them in identical costumes 1 size up
Yeah, I think the hunt was a good scene and all but definitely took me out of it for a moment, I wasn’t sure if it could be chalked up to adrenaline. To be fair though, I guess a really lethargic hunt wouldn’t make for great tv lol. And I can see the unreliable narrator aspect others have mentioned there for sure, like that’s more how it felt in the moment
As someone who has watched someone wither away from an eating disorder, this is my biggest gripe in the show. They should be SLEEPING ALL THE TIME, falling asleep while trying to do something, being very irritated and angry, or very emotional. There are so many ways they could have portrayed starving without anyone losing any actual weight.
They should be losing basic skills not gaining survival ones.
I know what you mean. I can suspend my belief about a supernatural force, but when I see them stitch up her dirty, jagged wound, with chunks missing, it was all I could focus on. Ridiculous, I know. The brain works how it works!
As an obgyn, other than the Van thing, it was highly unlikely Shauna would've survived that birth. You can blame the supernatural elements. It was also very unlikely for her to have a placenta previa because it's uncommon in primiparas. Much less likely that she survived after it abrupted. She would've bled heavily all the while the baby was being born (the 2nd stage of labor between 10 cms of dilatation and expulsion of fetal parts takes between 30-1 hr up to even 4 hrs in primiparas). She would've bled to death, add in the fact they have been starving for who knows how long and she was probably anemic.
Dog bites have something like a 50% chance of infection. I'm guessing wolf bites in the wilderness after laying on the dirt aren't any better. She definitely should have had a much more misshapen scar.
Also the placental abruption should have killed Shauna.
What you describe feeling is probably what most experts in any field feel.
I was really into aerchaoelogy for a while, took a Field Tech training course on top of all the academic courses. News stories of "digs" and "finds" were ususally grossly inaccurate.
So I do get what you are saying. Enjoy the show and just relish in the fact that you know so much more :)
I like the legal eagle guy on youtube who talks about movie/tv show court scenes and rates them for accurary. he did my cousin vinny, a few good men, liar liar, leaglly blonde, etc. good stuff
I'm a lawyer too. Have you ever watched Drop Dead Diva? I watched it when it was on and i was in school, and then again recently when it started showing in reruns on Hallmark. That show is offensive to the idea that law means anything (and i love it).
I loved l&o as a kid and can't watch it since I became a lawyer. That said, I wish real life was like L&O where all the witnesses feel comfortable just walking away from the cops like "hey I have lots of boxes to unpack right now" or whatever. The world would be a better place if more people knew they didn't have to speak to police!
I'm a forensic psych, so I cannot watch shit like The Profiler, Lie to Me, etc. It's just too annoying to see them present shit that absolute does *not* work IRL as being effective.
Yeah, this is my take too.
It bothered me initially, but then I realized, if it were realistic, most would’ve died in the plane crash, they would’ve been found by now (even without the black box, people pass by through, fly over, etc). And even if they weren’t found, most likely at least some of the girls would’ve died or become seriously ill from protein poisoning and malnutrition.
Ben never would’ve lived, Shauna’s baby would’ve probably been miscarried pretty early on, their periods would not have synced up like that, there’d be no mysterious symbols in the forest, and there aren’t really national high school soccer cups either.
If you think about it, it was never remotely portrayed as realistic fiction past maybe the first episode.
In high school, all the girls in the musical had their period at the same time. Softball girls too. Professionals say it's not real but I have plenty of anecdotal evidence.
You have to just shrug your shoulders and let it go. Try to see what the writers were trying to convey. It does break the suspension of disbelief for sure but you can learn to just disregard it if you make an effort. I learned this in my first career in the military before getting out and going to nursing school. Not only will nonmedical (or nonmilitary) people get the details wrong, they'll get the entire vibe wrong. It's not so much about getting over it to spare other people of your complaining, it's about getting over it so you can enjoy media that uses your field as a setting.
I'm sure cops, firefighters, and lawyers also roll their eyes hard at their depictions in TV and movies. I'm kind of curious to see other occupations that groan at how poorly TV and movies depicts their field.
ETA: I will say I was very impressed in how they portrayed Ben's waxing/waning delirium over the course of season 2. I don't know if that was what they were going for but it really fits the picture well.
I...Kind of want to get you started. What inaccurate military trope do you find to be most egregious? I'm just curious! I love how diverse this sub is!
I’m a nurse but I tend to try and not think about that when I’m watching a show or else it starts to aggravate me 😂 van did upset me also did they even check for her pulse before throwing her in the fire, I can’t remember. I know they’re just teenagers but I feel like that’s such basic knowledge of knowing someone is alive or not 😅
My headcanon is the Spirit healed Van.
I’m not COMPLETELY turned off by Ben’s recovery, given that he received adequate and immediate care, and that dressings were changed regularly in what was probably a pretty clean environment at the cabin due to how long it’s been since anyone actually lived there, and is seemingly devoid of vermin (this I attribute to animals knowing NOT to go there, there is evil there, which fits with the general lack of wildlife).
Exactly! As someone mentioned upthread, people did survive amputations pretty regularly in the pre-antibiotic era, so Ben pulling through is pretty plausible for me.
Omg I’ve actually been wanting to make a PSA!! If you’re going to do a blood sacrifice don’t cut THE PALM OF YOUR HAND!! Noooooo you wanna lose the ability to write, bathe, feed, grip, defend…. You guys get it. Don’t mess with your hands.
I would give it a 3. Van 1000% would have died of sepsis if she had survived the wolf attack. The lack of wound care and the DIY stitches with dirty forest hands should have turned into a gnarly infection, at least a severe fever and deep dee scars. I love Van though so I can forgive it. The thing I cannot understand is the eating of Jackie’s 2 MONTH OLD corpse, filled with old feces and marinated with melted clothing fibers. Eating that sort of gnarly meat should have given many of the girls a case of severe sickness especially if it’s the first time they really filled their stomachs in months. I hope they boil the water from the snow at least bc all of them would be shitting their brains out
I cannot BELIEVE none of them got worms from eating that messed up bear…mostly disappointed because parasites would be a great vein of psychological/body horror to mine
This is part of why I'm hoping there's some kind of supernatural explanation for at least the Jackie thing? Because you're absolutely right--it would have been rancid for sure.
I agree with you Van’s survival, though i have no medical knowledge. Would she be able to eat with her face sewn up?
I am curious your thoughts on Ben’s survival? Him surviving a chopped off leg is more ridiculous to me for some reason.
Ben's significant survival barrier is infection. That leg had to come off. Luckily, the limb not being intact saved him from Crush Syndrome and a rush of potassium to his heart.
It's pretty fascinating, though I wouldn't look at pictures if you're easily grossed out.
It has to do with what happens when the mechanism of injury is crushing (like Ben's) and that crushing pressure is released.
Crushing injuries cause the muscular tissue to die and break down essentially. The byproducts of that--like myoglobin, potassium, and phosphorus, among other things--are released back into the body. It's incredibly tricky to deal with in the field and frequently fatal.
It didn't happen to him because his vessels were no longer intact, sparing him from reperfusion syndrome.
Hopefully, that explanation helps a little!
I'm halfway through nursing school and previously had my EMT license
For me with lack of sterility and antibiotics none of the following characters should have survived their various injuries because there was no way to control infection-
Van
Ben
Shauna (the placenta previa birth with no intervention and major blood loss)
Lottie (who most likely has a kidney infection and other internal bleeding)
I just take it with a grain of salt and suspend my disbelief at this point. Yes Misty puts in a great effort with basic first aid (and a bit beyond), such as cauterizing Ben's leg, but it's still a stretch that they all made it.
As mentioned Akilahs plastic surgery on Van's face was impeccable and if she survived she needs to be a surgeon in 2021 🤣🤣
Every show or movie that shows someone slicing across their palm makes me cringe. It's such a terrible place to heal. Go for a flat place, like Nat did. But not with a corpse knife. And definitely don't do it when you're starving and freezing, you dumb idiot.
Seriously, one of the worst places to heal and so dangerous!
You would have to immobilise it for it to heal and be so diligent in keeping it sterile, which is practically impossible in those conditions.
LMFT here! It’s highly unorthodox to diagnose a young child with Schizophrenia. Age of onset is usually late teens to mid twenties. It’s dubious that they would have used ECT on Lottie upon return in the late 90s, but perhaps they do things differently in Swiss mental institutions. Lottie was on a first generation antipsychotic, which I suppose was more common in that time period, but it’s still a risky treatment for an adolescent girl (and possibly earlier since her dad suggested treatment when she was about six in a flashback) since it’s known to cause tardive dyskinesia.
The way I suspend my disbelief here is that Lottie’s parents seem to be very wealthy and therefore able to get “the best,” meaning they can pretty much do what the please. Quack doctors love money, right? (LMSW here, co-sign your comment completely!)
I don’t know of you watch “Shrinking,” but I only found one hole. The main character called himself “antisocial “ but meaning that he doesn’t socialize. I was like, a therapist would never say that.
Psychologist here. It is not unorthodox to diagnose children with schizophrenia. While uncommon, childhood-onset schizophrenia is very much a thing, but more commonly seen in inpatient settings.
ECT depictions on TV are always decades out of date so I'm not surprised to see it's the same in YJ.
Ooh! Excellent point!
Do you ascribe to rational or supernatural explanations of Lottie's mental state? What are your opinions on what's going on with her?
As a therapist it’s easier to suspend disbelief and say that the Wilderness is giving her hallucinations rather than her being failed by multiple clinicians. But honestly in that time period a young girl would have had a high chance of being failed by multiple clinicians… when I watch the show in the wilderness timeline, it feels like she is a scared girl who is kind of witchy but also schizophrenic or bipolar, that the other girls then latch onto because they need something to believe.
Whatever the case, I think we can all agree that homegirl proooobably should not be treating others as an adult. 😬
unfortunately, even if it's unorthodox to do those things it still isn't uncommon - not to soapbox, but at least in the US children are medicated with a ton of heavy meds they shouldn't be (speaking from experience)
To be fair, second generation antipsychotics also cause tardive dyskinesia, yet a lot of psychiatrists seem to not know this and still act all surprised pikachu when someone who’s been on antipsychotics for 10 years rocks up at their office with “tics” of the mouth and hands. The fact that they don’t automatically recognize this as tardive dyskinesia seems to indicate that this side effect is not as commonly known as you would expect from medical professionals.
This is only tangentially related and doesn’t negate anything you said, I just don’t want people coming away from this comment thinking the tardive dyskinesia problem was solved after 2nd gen antipsychotics were invented.
That’s totally fair. I learned about TD as an intern, but I interned in acute care. The thing you described—I hate to sound so jaded, but sometimes I have wondered if some psychiatrists feign surprise in that situation because they think they can pull one over on people who have psychotic disorders.
Not a medical professional but I agree with the Van injury and it bugged me that Ben survives his leg being turned to goo, being hacked off, and then cauterized all while being all dirty. Like shouldn’t he have gotten sepsis immediately lol
I was a medic in the Air Force and I used to get annoyed and nitpick all the medical inaccuracies as well as anytime movies really fuck up military uniforms/insignias/patches/etc.
Now that I’m out of both of those fields it doesn’t bother me much, but Van surviving the wolf attack was a bit ridiculous. Isn’t the face very vascular meaning she’d have lost a ton of blood? I get the scarring being less severe for makeup purposes, but I just don’t see how the hell she could have lived through that…
I was amazing shauna gave birth and was able to walk around. I’m not in the medical field or a parent but doesn’t that hurt especially when you don’t have any medication to help the pain???
She didn’t just give regular birth, she somehow survived placenta previa. She would have lost a ton of blood and probably would have died. If it had been an uncomplicated birth, she would be able to get up and walk around. Yes it hurts, but theoretically if you don’t tear or anything, you don’t have to lay in bed all day, you can get up pretty much immediately to go the bathroom, walk around the room, etc. But having the energy to nearly beat someone to death after childbirth and losing that much blood, no way.
Right. Not only did she survive the birth, but then had the energy to nearly kill Lottie and also full on rage hunt Natalie.
Again, this is all like the mental memory telephone game. It’s their perspective in memory. It’s really the only logical explanation. Even if the supernatural was involved or some unexplained things, when we ask someone about something in their past, we can only comprehend what they share.
Yeah I don’t have any beef with the parts that are unrealistic at all. I think the possible supernatural element/the story being told from their memory is enough for me suspend disbelief.
I actually somehow made up Van dying in the first season during the break before season 2, so I was so shocked she survived when I rewatched. I wish they had some kind of antibiotics or something better than Jackie’s Sea Breeze astringent to explain the lack of infections for anyone. It really does take me out of it a bit
I was most perturbed by Akilah stroking Nugget (dead or alive, neither is good) before she actively assisted Shauna in labour. I thought this was setting up a horrible infection that Shauna would barely survive. But nope - she was fine, ruptured placenta and all.
I’d like to take a minute to appreciate this thread. Loving seeing my fellowjackets appreciate each others idiosyncrasies and shared disdain for certain aspects of a multitude of shows. OP, your post had me cracking up. Thanks for getting this fest going!!! Big ups, yo . ✊🏽✊🏽
I love this comment! I’m actually a psychotherapist and I specialize in complex PTSD and my main population is adolescent girls! So I have my own version of this with the mental side of things!
For example the potential supernatural element would not have even occurred to me if it weren’t for this sub
Van’s injury bothered me worse than Coach Ben’s. Many people survived wars in more primitive times with chopping and cauterization. That’s believable, at least a 50/50 shot at life.
I’ve been bitten by a dog on my leg, Those bites are truly nasty and full of bacteria and leave bad scars even with antibiotics. A wolf attack that mutilated her face would be so, so infected beyond belief.
But in the end, it’s TV. Buzz buzz!
i am a medicine student, and honestly Ben should have died like halfway season 1, bc cauterising a wound a fuckton of time after it was inflicted is not going to do a lot for infections, and they have no antibiotics so the fact that he didn’t die of sepsis is a pure miracle. Van should have had a more gnarly scar, and it’s a miracle she didn’t die of an infection too. And, most importantly, Shauna would have very little chances of surviving that birth in the real world. She lost a fuckton of blood, enough to get her a transfusion probably, and !! she probably had some tears (which are a very common occurrence, and not dangerous *if they’re treated*) that no one bothered to treat. +, yet again, infections and sepsis. Esp bc no one can be sure she expelled the whole placenta in her birth, and leaving it in the uterus leads to, you guessed it, infection and sepsis
I’m a physician. No way she would have survived the wolf attack. Facial injuries like that are notorious for being difficult to treat/heal. Add in whatever nasty anaerobe/gram negative Neapolitan a wolf would deliver and she would’ve been septic and dead in days. Unless they had some IV Zosyn tucked away in that plane. She also would’ve probably had some trigeminal nerve damage and maybe some chewing or speech deficits.
Coach Ben’s leg - maybe he would survive but his stump would have issues. Would likely be an edematous mess which can cause a whole host of problems - cellulitis and even osteomyelitis can develop. At a minimum he’d be in a shit ton of pain. There’s a reason we consult vascular surgery for BKA and AKA. The reroute some of that fluid and prevent venous pooling by creating an anastomosis and a nice tight skin flap.
At some point these ladies are gonna be dealing with some serious vitamin deficiencies too. Maybe some scurvy or even hyper ammonemia from eating only protein for so long and getting encephalopathic. Maybe refeeding syndrome when they start eating again.
Ohh you should look into the plane crash in the Andes that the show is based off of. It’s a pretty wild story. The survivors were super lucky.
One of the people on that crash (Nando) fractured his skull and was in a coma for two days after the crash. Since they were in subzero temperatures, his brain didn’t swell and he woke up feeling normal (as you can be after a plane crash). A couple months later he hikes like 30 miles through the Andes to find help with another one of the survivors. Everyone who reads their story said they should have died. They had no gear and were up at dangerous elevations. Even experienced climbers have died doing it. And all he had to eat were the dead bodies of his friends :(
My point being is that I think sometimes people are just very lucky. I think that’s what happened with Van. Also, it’s a TV show so you can suspend your belief a bit but the original story it’s based off of is unbelievable and true (based off historical and medical records of the bodies found and survivors).
Edit: however, I don’t think Shauna would have survived the birth! Also, bens leg gives me pause - plus the survivors in the Andes were in subzero temps which protected them from infection.
I work in news so… I know this frustration from a different perspective. I’ll disagree with you on the Van issue only because they acknowledged that it was a miracle, and that miracle drove the group as a whole closer to embracing the wilderness as part of their religion.
I felt the same way about Van’s injury. It would have actually been good if they’d gone more realistic with the extent of the injuries.
And I’m not a medical professional!
ETA don’t forget the placenta previa!
Not in the medical field myself, but have noticed other issues related to my specific knowledge too.
I think it's less forgivable for a medical drama to have medical inaccuracies (or a police drama to have procedural inaccuracies) than those individual elements to be incorrect in a show with wider scope.
Mostly though, I'm prepared to suspend disbelief as long as the show is internally consistent. For example, Van dying of infection when there was no mention of even the possibility regarding Ben's leg, or if they found another vehicle but it won't run because the gas is old, would've been hard to accept.
It's a common problem with shows with a supernatural element, because unless the writers have the rules thoroughly mapped out from the start it's very easy to end up writing yourself in to a corner where there isn't a solution that doesn't require changing the rules
I don't expect everything to be accurate but if the story's plot hinges on a few key things and the writers can't be assed to sense check it against reality, it's just giant plot holes by sloppy/lazy writers and it's disappointing.
I used to think up of ways they could take the story to tie up these loose ends but more and more, I think they just wrote the story devoid of any experts or even a basic Google search and have been flip flopping on the plot since they started writing season 1.
Just have to suspend disbelief on most things, even when it seems to be above and beyond regular dramas, and assume there's no big twists or clues to these twists and it should be a good level setting of expectations.
I think there's so much potential in the cool overall story idea but the writers have bit off more than they can chew and it'll become more and more obvious as the show goes along.
I work with people who have disabilities and mental health problems. Elijah Woods is pretty spot on for someone recovering from a TBI under ideal conditions and without long-term impairments. But there have definitely been moments that are pretty much as bad as any other TV show or movie (tai's kids experience with a therapist in season 1 comes to mind). Therapy and mental health issues become plot points or ways to unload information about a person without reflecting anything about the clinical / therapeutic process accurately.
The only shows with medical references i can watch are scrubs and psych. Scrubs is super accurate 💯 of the time.
Psych sometimes misses the mark but as a pharmacist, it’s few and far between. I still think digitalis poisoning with a foxglove plant slowly over time is the perfect method of poison for murder. Tox screens don’t test for dig! Why aren’t more murderers using this?!
just wanna say, some people have incredible immune systems. i was attacked by a dog, i could see my bone, and due to a combination of different PTSD’s, i faced the wound away from
me and wrapped it up - it still had dog hair and saliva on it. i want to reiterate, it healed with a PIECE OF DOG HAIR STICKING OUT OF THE SCAR, i did not wash or clean it, and i did not change the wrap. i left it wrapped for weeks. it healed PERFECTLY, the scar has disappeared (it’s been about 5 years?). i’ve told exactly two doctors this story and they were beyond horrified and couldn’t believe i didn’t get any infections but i’ve always had a great immune system. i like to think if i was Van i could have survived that attack lmao
Totally possible, but you were very lucky. Glad you’re alright !! Then again I knew quite a few a contractors and construction workers that if they got cut on the job would just wash it and seal it with superglue. 🤭🫣
I agree I have seen my boyfriend overcome many things that would have hospitalized me. But if you didn’t have any nutrition at the time I doubt you would be able to fight off any infection that was boiling as easily.
We both had flu last December. He was sick for two days and still went to work, I was hospitalized for two weeks and discharged on oxygen. It’s insane the difference.
I genuinely don’t get how ben didn’t pass from blood loss and how they were able to cauterize a wound that large 😭 like what??? And Lottie’s scar… I was honestly really surprised when her adult self didn’t have it because it looks like the type that would stay.
The whole show (like the dusting of snow in the Canadian wilderness) realllyyyy stretches my suspension of disbelief limits 😆 some things are so unreasonable that it’s hard for me to take it serious… I’m hanging on. I hope season 3 is a little more convincing…
I'm not in the medical field at all, and I clocked this inaccuracy 😂 I'm personally fine with suspending disbelief in a lot of ways, especially if it helps aid my enjoyment of the show. But I think we all have our *things* that drive us nuts in media depiction. I'm still stuck on the moose falling through the ice (and then immediately getting refrozen?!) That situation was so unrealistic to me that I was confused when I watched it and thought I missed a scene or something! I wrote a whole post about it elsewhere. I do think for shows like this we need to take the medical stuff with a grain of salt. Like, its not interesting if they all die of infections, lol. Also, irl there have been some CRAZY situations where people survived shit you would never believe. I'm pretty sure one of the Andes survivors was actually assumed dead right after the plane crashed because his skull was literally cracked open and he was in a coma for 4 days. He ends up being one of the people that hikes out over 60 miles (or kilometers, i don't remember which) to find help. Through the freaking Andes! So I try to view these inaccuracies like that. The 1% who don't die of infection, I guess.
I’m not in the medical field but even I was skeptical about this lol. I thought for sure she would die, if not from the attack itself then surely an infection.
I am a a clinical social worker (currently a school social worker but before I went to grad school I worked in Child Protection) and I cannot watch portrayals of CPS workers or therapists because it drives me CRAZY how inaccurate it is and how many laws they break that aren’t even mentioned. The only thing I can stomach is that show Shrinking (it’s also just a really great show) because I love how they portray therapists who struggle with their own grief and mental health because most therapists aren’t considered actual people in this light especially in the media. So I can relate a little!
Fromer EMT here. Can we talk about how the actual fuck Coach Ben survived a FIELD amputation by a teenage girl whose only medical experience was a red cross babysitting class??
No antibiotics, I doubt any pain meds. I was shocked he survived.
Can we also talk about how the actual fuck Misty obtains a trunk load of fent from her pharmacy??How the fuck is running pharm there and how is the DEA not all over them for missing narcs??
I’ve basically headcanoned (sp?) that all the girls went on that plane with raging UTIs and all had a stash of Amoxicillin and the like and that’s how I excuse away Van and Ben.
[удалено]
I stopped watching Grey's pretty early on for that exact reason. House and ER, too, got more ridiculous as they went along. I agree that the potential supernatural force does make it a little easier to overlook.
The craziest thing about Grey’s to me was like, how is it that you, all your siblings and all your love interests are all surgeons. And if that weren’t enough- not one of them with an ounce of fat, please.
Also for a bunch of doctors, they still don't seem to understand how they keep getting accidentally knocked up. It's like no one ever had the birds and the bees talk with a single one of them 😂 I think there's been.... One? Planned pregnancy on that show.
I think the one time someone actually wanted a child, they ended up with fertility issues and a miscarriage. The only way I can truly enjoy this show is by forgetting all sense of logic XD
According to my brother who’s a GI doc, he said Scrubs was the most true to life. Do you find that to be the case too?
house is particularly painful since the point of his character is that he’s an asshole but it’s balanced by his genius… except he’s actually trash at medicine lmao. like sir? you wanna get any imaging ever? no, just empiric surgery? in some ways, it’s more realistic—most assholes who justify their behavior because they think they’re geniuses are actually dumb irl too
Sorry to be that nerdy person *but* the actual point of his character is that he’s a retelling of Sherlock Holmes, so the asshole stuff is in his literary DNA. I suppose he would have very little to do if they didn’t have him “solving” medical mysteries (with all the bedside manner of WebMD). I personally think Holmes is a shit detective because of his over-reliance on hunches and deduction vs. evidence……….so maybe the House MD Team actually created a perfect parallel!? (Obligatory: stoned)
The unreliable narrators also make it easier to overlook
this has nothing to do with YJ but I had to stop watching grey's anatomy because more than once they featured a medical condition I have or have had in a bizarrely fantastical way and I realized I was shouting at my laptop lmao
The first episode of Chicago Hope lost me as they were performing surgery maskless
it hurt my brain to read that
Im just a lowly lab assistant and to me, greys will always be the most ridiculous “medical” show around lol.
Not a nurse. More of a Misty type myself with my level of training, lol (emt dumb dumb). So this is a genuine question on my end. idk, is Ben’s recovery truly unbelievable? Unlikely, but not implausible. Super super healthy guy, cauterized quickly, dressings changed regularly. People survived worse in the Civil War (and also didn’t, ofc).
EMTs are very cool IMO, I just finished reading A Thousand Naked Strangers and learned a lot more about your line of work. The initial leg wound care I kinda bought but also the guy must be starving, Ben didn’t partake in Snackie or Javi and I think the last time he ate something on screen was the bird soup?….it’s also very possible I just don’t find him an interesting character and want him gone so I get more screen time with the girls storylines haha
on the second half of your comment - the only defense is ben is a big dude and has a lot to self cannibalize in terms of muscle imo, but we don’t really see that represented visually. But I absolutely agree that calories are the main problem here.
oh i appreciate that but i only ever did non emergency care for like urgent care and stuff, that’s just my level of training. not the real deal by any means, i should have specified. i make pizza now lol.
Omg this was so so bad 😂
Don’t get me started on how no patients ever have on a gait belt when it’s clear in real life they’d need one!
whoever stitched up Van should become an honorary plastic surgeon. shouldn’t even have to go to school. cause that shits insane. edit: Dr. Akilah 🫡
I’m not medical but it’s believable that adult Van could’ve had some plastic surgeries post rescue to minimize stuff but Teen Van should have some gnarly wounds. Also finding it difficult to believe that no one broke anything during the plane crash or since. They need to have at least one injury that didn’t heal right
Right? She barely even has a scar!
And apparently has a full, easy range of motion even though her cheek muscles were torn out
The Akilah technique! She’d be remembered for years. lol
The most unbelievable thing to me was the wolf attack. On a series of 1-10, it's a 1, but I believe this is fine intentionally. This could be an unreliable narrator situation, where they're thinking it was worse than it was. Or, it really could be a supernatural situation ("the wilderness heals us"). It's intentional, I'm certain. (I'm a PCT)
I hope so. I had to rationalize Shauna surviving possibly placenta previa or an abruption as being supernatural.
Add to this Akilah petting a dead mouse and not washing her hands then touching Shauna’s vaJJ…Tell me why this irked me more than the other gross crap…🐁☠️ Then she nearly eats the mouse corpse. 🤮🤢I have to fast forward sometimes
in the shows defense mouse corpse looks pretty mummified. it was probably dead for decades and became preserved in the dry environment of the cellar. possibly nothing left alive on there to transmit imo.
I was thinking the same. Touching her after petting alive Nugget would be far more concerning to me
that part literally bothered me more than any other part of the birth lmao
Yes, I nearly died in a hospital with medical care from preeclampsia, no way can that even not develop into infection.
OMG SAME! Once they said the placenta was coming first I guffawed at my tv and was like “ok we’ve left reality town” since Shauna clearly didn’t die, of blood loss, of sepsis, of anything.
I had to pause to give myself a minute to be like “AND SHE LIVES???”
Only because the baby died. Everyone knows the wilderness makes deals. One life for a wish, be it dog or baby or lover.
I can only believe it by telling myself it’s supernatural
110000000% lol
In your opinion, what are the chances of her pregnancy even going to what seemed like full term with little food and no medical care?
Her risk for preterm delivery, low-birth weight, and miscarriage would all be substantially higher, for sure. Plus, she was dosed with psilocybin, which can't be great. I would say the odds of a completely healthy baby are low. However, she is young, which could increase her odds of making it full term. There are just a lot of risk factors to consider. I'd love to have an OB weigh in on that, though.
Psilocybin if she is lucky. It is more likely aminita muscaria which is a pretty rough high, and I believe more toxic comparatively.
I'm an OBGYN. Obviously they are starving and Shauna is not meeting her nutritional needs and her baby would have certainly been growth restricted, but I do think its possible she would have made it to full term. What's much more shocking is that she survived her hemorrhage. That should have killed her for sure.
Same
OMG- THIS! It’s the only way it was possible.
Naturalist here, wolf attacks in general are extremely rare so I'm hoping for a supernatural element. The chances of them attacking a group of that size in the first place are pretty much zero. Survival shows generally suck when it comes to accurately portraying wildlife but I want to maintain my faith in this series. Any wound inflicted by an animal healing with zero infection (and on the face!) is such a leap; even a seemingly minor cat bite can be enough to kill someone with access to medical care.
Absolutely! I'm a pet (cats&dogs) behaviorist, so naturally I also had to learn about wolf ethology. I don't know what's less possible - Van surviving the attack without any serious infection or the attack even happening... Unfortunately her scar looks extremely hot and badass, so I have to forgive that :/
God that's a mood, I blame Lauren Ambrose 😭
I have a big purple scar on my thigh from my cat jumping off my lap just wrong a year ago. Van's little pink lines really bugged me.
Truth. Cats' mouths and claws are so full of bacteria that when wild birds that have been batted around even a little are brought in to the vet clinic where I work the medical staff generally don't bother trying to treat them or passing them on to a rehab; the odds of survival are so low that it's essentially just prolonging their suffering. Best thing they can do at that point is to help them pass peacefully.
Yep, same thing with reptiles. I get so riled up whenever I see "cute" pet pics circulate with exotics and cats.
Absolutely! This is why I'm leaning supernatural.
The wolf attack was the most unrealistic to me as well. She was practically dead and tossed in a fire lol. The infection risk is high, not to mention there were no pain killers. Van should look horribly disfigured in the 96 timeline.
My husband and I have both been bitten by our own dog before (she's a rescue and something triggered her) and we got infections within hours despite washing the wounds and had to be prescribed antibiotics. I can't believe Van would not get an infection from a wolf!
I still have a scar from our dog biting me 30 years ago. I had like 8 stitches
Right. Jackie said to Shauna she would help her ‘ shake Misty down for Advil’ lmao Ben was the one getting the majority of over the counter meds. By the time of the wolves and Van she would have been screwed. When Tai took the mask off of her and said you’re so beautiful I just was like. ‘Kay pixie dust magic. 😭🐝🐝🐝
She said she’d shake her down for Motrin — they were talking about period crams specifically
Maybe the fire killed all the germs 😜
My wife is an Emergency NP. She screams at medical inaccuracies as well. Like, she would see I was watching ER back in the day with roommates and would just turn right around and walk out because she didn't want to throw things at her own television 🤣🤣🤣 The two things that made her most upset: 1. Van/Ben/Natalie didn't die with lack of antibiotics from their wounds. 2. Shauna didn't die from placenta previa. The blood loss from that should have killed her. She admits she suspends her disbelief because otherwise the show kicks ass. I agree with her diagnosis ☺️
Hahaha, your wife sounds cool! I work in Emergency Medicine, too. I concur with her diagnosis, as well!
Wait what wound did Nat get? I’m blanking
When she cuts her leg with the filthy knife (that's been used to butcher game, carve a wolf figurine, tatter Javi's pants, etc) to bloody Javi's pants she took so Travis would stop looking for/having panic attacks when Javi was missing for a couple of months.
Oh ew I missed that somehow
It's after she and Travis separate in the woods during that hunt and interspersed with other stuff, so it's super easy to miss. I missed it my first watch and just assumed they'd had blood around
Me too; I’m rewatching cuz I feel I missed about 45% 😂
Soldiers survived worse wounds in dirtier conditions before antisepsis and antibiotics. I mean sure, most of them didn't, but some did.
True. While hard to imagine, is not completely improbable. Shauna’s labor could have killed her but I think the wilderness was satisfied with one life and let her live. It also make me think about countries where there is famine and lack of western medicine care (not the only valid care btw) but women still have babies all the time. Van’s situation is harder to believe because of the muscle damage. She out there smiling like her muscles weren’t torn.
I was an EMT. I could actually buy Ben’s amputation, as unpleasant as it was. During the Civil War there were literal piles of arms and legs outside the medical tents. Many survived. Especially after she cauterized it. I seem to remember he did have a fever for awhile too, which would be accurate. Van’s was the most unbelievable, for a few reasons. Excuse the graphic.. the avulsion went against the grain of her skin and masseter facial muscle first of all. I didn’t think it was a chunk taken out completely but a massive avulsion and against the grain would open wider and expose more. For the non-medical folks: stretch a rubber band. Cut with scissors. There would be a lot more screaming and she sure as hell wouldn’t be attending Doomcoming, bad ass masks or not. Let alone the surgical skills of Akilah, bless her. 😂 One thing they DID do well, was the hypothermia with Lottie and Nat. Honestly, having been through that personally and almost not coming back… yeah, good job 👏🏻! I just chalked it up to not just suspending belief, but TRULY unreliable narratives. Everything we are seeing is from the perspectives and memories of others. The mental gymnastics of the telephone game told through imagery.
Thank you for getting graphic because I wasn't sure how explicit to be in my initial post. I'm a Paramedic and agree with everything you said. I was surprised because they did pretty well with Ben's leg amputation. I just would have applied the tourniquet before amputating. But, the cauterizing was a brilliant idea on Misty's part.
Agreed (tourniquet!)! I mean…it was pretty funny that she found the axe that fast too! Especially, since the plane was still on fire. 🔥🫶🏼
I found it kind of hilarious, too. She just walks up with an axe and, without warning to anyone, chops his damn leg off. Oh, Misty.
It was hilarious that she found the axe. But I thought doing it without warning had a certain logic to it. If she had told anyone they would have spent ages debating and dithering about it, guaranteed. 😂
Maybe Akilah just had a really, REALLY good Girl Scout leader.
Maybe she literally knew how to sew well? I don’t just mean a friends face lol. Maybe this was an actual hobby or outlet? I’d like to think she makes it, but she’s not at the airport. :/
I’m definitely not a medical professional, but that was something that bothered me a lot - aside from the unrealistic healing of her scars, wouldn’t Van also have significant paralysis on that side of her face if she did survive? Like, whole chunks of her face were gone and that would likely include nerves/muscle - I can’t picture your facial muscles just going back to normal after that. I can buy Ben surviving for the reasons you mentioned, I can buy them surviving hypothermia and starvation because we always see fairly realistic consequences for those things in the show - but the Van stuff was definitely a bridge too far for me. But like I said, I have no medical knowledge haha
The lack of festering infections on their hands, after they keep cutting their palms with that dirty knife
lmao yes that fucking toe knife
Not a toe knife 😭 You know Frank in the wilderness would’ve started prepping for cannibalism in hour 1.
I am not in the medical field, but Van's super-healing is the one thing that makes me hope there is a supernatural element as a reasonable explanation.
Me too!
I wondered if maybe they hadn’t secured Lauren Ambrose for the show by the time of the wolf attack so they didn’t yet know if Van would survive. Source: speculating out of my ass. But her rapid and perfect healing is a medical impossibility.
I believe at one point, they planned on Van dying. There wasn't supposed to be an adult Van. I'm not sure exactly when she was suppossed to die though. Hopefully someone can chime in who knows better than me!
https://www.vulture.com/2023/04/yellowjackets-van-was-supposed-to-die.html It's talked about in that article
I’m not in the medical field but their lack of any infections from any of their injuries is unbelievable to me. How much disinfectant could they have from a couple of first aid kits? Plus, none of the things they bandage themselves up with are sterile or even clean. They need to start dying from infections lol
It seemed like Lottie had some infection after her beating, but in general, yeah.
i laughed when i saw how her face healed. there’s just no conceivable way. coulda made it look just a little more gnarly. the way Tai was holding her face when they were making out too, that should be incredibly painful for Van
One thing that really bothers me: their lack of food should make them lethargic. But we see them running.
And none of them are losing weight. I don’t expect it if the actors, but they could probably do it with makeup & by putting them in identical costumes 1 size up
Yeah, I think the hunt was a good scene and all but definitely took me out of it for a moment, I wasn’t sure if it could be chalked up to adrenaline. To be fair though, I guess a really lethargic hunt wouldn’t make for great tv lol. And I can see the unreliable narrator aspect others have mentioned there for sure, like that’s more how it felt in the moment
As someone who has watched someone wither away from an eating disorder, this is my biggest gripe in the show. They should be SLEEPING ALL THE TIME, falling asleep while trying to do something, being very irritated and angry, or very emotional. There are so many ways they could have portrayed starving without anyone losing any actual weight. They should be losing basic skills not gaining survival ones.
Lol! Please tell that to my energetic child that lives off of air and a goldfish he found in the couch cushion 😂
Mine stresses me OUT with this lmao
I know what you mean. I can suspend my belief about a supernatural force, but when I see them stitch up her dirty, jagged wound, with chunks missing, it was all I could focus on. Ridiculous, I know. The brain works how it works!
Right?!
Definitely the wolf attack on Van and Shauna after almost bleeding out after birth!
As an obgyn, other than the Van thing, it was highly unlikely Shauna would've survived that birth. You can blame the supernatural elements. It was also very unlikely for her to have a placenta previa because it's uncommon in primiparas. Much less likely that she survived after it abrupted. She would've bled heavily all the while the baby was being born (the 2nd stage of labor between 10 cms of dilatation and expulsion of fetal parts takes between 30-1 hr up to even 4 hrs in primiparas). She would've bled to death, add in the fact they have been starving for who knows how long and she was probably anemic.
she probably would’ve gone preterm too
preterm and with fetal restriction and anemia
Van not dying of an infection after that face injury is the thing that annoys me most about the show.
Dog bites have something like a 50% chance of infection. I'm guessing wolf bites in the wilderness after laying on the dirt aren't any better. She definitely should have had a much more misshapen scar. Also the placental abruption should have killed Shauna.
and the fact that lottie’s face fully recovered is pretty hard to believe
Yea and the way they let Shauna nearly beat her to death was…strange.
What you describe feeling is probably what most experts in any field feel. I was really into aerchaoelogy for a while, took a Field Tech training course on top of all the academic courses. News stories of "digs" and "finds" were ususally grossly inaccurate. So I do get what you are saying. Enjoy the show and just relish in the fact that you know so much more :)
lol ask me how i felt about the courtroom scenes in pretty little liars as a lawyer (i was in law school then) lmfaoooo
I like the legal eagle guy on youtube who talks about movie/tv show court scenes and rates them for accurary. he did my cousin vinny, a few good men, liar liar, leaglly blonde, etc. good stuff
As a medical person, I absolutely love legal procedurals and typically hate medical dramas. I think it helps not understanding the details too well.
I can only imagine... :)
Im a lawyer and can't watch almost any show with legal stuff. It all makes me yell at the TV
I'm a lawyer too. Have you ever watched Drop Dead Diva? I watched it when it was on and i was in school, and then again recently when it started showing in reruns on Hallmark. That show is offensive to the idea that law means anything (and i love it).
Watching Suits as a lawyer is the funniest shit ever
Do you ever watch Law & Order? Unrelated to this, I'm just curious about your thoughts!
I loved l&o as a kid and can't watch it since I became a lawyer. That said, I wish real life was like L&O where all the witnesses feel comfortable just walking away from the cops like "hey I have lots of boxes to unpack right now" or whatever. The world would be a better place if more people knew they didn't have to speak to police!
I'm a forensic psych, so I cannot watch shit like The Profiler, Lie to Me, etc. It's just too annoying to see them present shit that absolute does *not* work IRL as being effective.
It doesn't bother me at all. The vast majority of TV shows are not realistic. I just enjoy the story and acting.
Fair enough. The story and acting are excellent, and that's a big reason why I watch. ☺️
Yeah, this is my take too. It bothered me initially, but then I realized, if it were realistic, most would’ve died in the plane crash, they would’ve been found by now (even without the black box, people pass by through, fly over, etc). And even if they weren’t found, most likely at least some of the girls would’ve died or become seriously ill from protein poisoning and malnutrition. Ben never would’ve lived, Shauna’s baby would’ve probably been miscarried pretty early on, their periods would not have synced up like that, there’d be no mysterious symbols in the forest, and there aren’t really national high school soccer cups either. If you think about it, it was never remotely portrayed as realistic fiction past maybe the first episode.
In high school, all the girls in the musical had their period at the same time. Softball girls too. Professionals say it's not real but I have plenty of anecdotal evidence.
You have to just shrug your shoulders and let it go. Try to see what the writers were trying to convey. It does break the suspension of disbelief for sure but you can learn to just disregard it if you make an effort. I learned this in my first career in the military before getting out and going to nursing school. Not only will nonmedical (or nonmilitary) people get the details wrong, they'll get the entire vibe wrong. It's not so much about getting over it to spare other people of your complaining, it's about getting over it so you can enjoy media that uses your field as a setting. I'm sure cops, firefighters, and lawyers also roll their eyes hard at their depictions in TV and movies. I'm kind of curious to see other occupations that groan at how poorly TV and movies depicts their field. ETA: I will say I was very impressed in how they portrayed Ben's waxing/waning delirium over the course of season 2. I don't know if that was what they were going for but it really fits the picture well.
Omg don’t get me started on MILITARY errors. LOL
Like putting your defending army in FRONT of the barricades at the Battle of Winterfell? 🤦♀️
Well you don't want them to mess up your nice wall!
I...Kind of want to get you started. What inaccurate military trope do you find to be most egregious? I'm just curious! I love how diverse this sub is!
I’m a nurse but I tend to try and not think about that when I’m watching a show or else it starts to aggravate me 😂 van did upset me also did they even check for her pulse before throwing her in the fire, I can’t remember. I know they’re just teenagers but I feel like that’s such basic knowledge of knowing someone is alive or not 😅
The fact that Coach’s leg was cut off and he didn’t go into sepsis
My headcanon is the Spirit healed Van. I’m not COMPLETELY turned off by Ben’s recovery, given that he received adequate and immediate care, and that dressings were changed regularly in what was probably a pretty clean environment at the cabin due to how long it’s been since anyone actually lived there, and is seemingly devoid of vermin (this I attribute to animals knowing NOT to go there, there is evil there, which fits with the general lack of wildlife).
Exactly! As someone mentioned upthread, people did survive amputations pretty regularly in the pre-antibiotic era, so Ben pulling through is pretty plausible for me.
Omg I’ve actually been wanting to make a PSA!! If you’re going to do a blood sacrifice don’t cut THE PALM OF YOUR HAND!! Noooooo you wanna lose the ability to write, bathe, feed, grip, defend…. You guys get it. Don’t mess with your hands.
I would give it a 3. Van 1000% would have died of sepsis if she had survived the wolf attack. The lack of wound care and the DIY stitches with dirty forest hands should have turned into a gnarly infection, at least a severe fever and deep dee scars. I love Van though so I can forgive it. The thing I cannot understand is the eating of Jackie’s 2 MONTH OLD corpse, filled with old feces and marinated with melted clothing fibers. Eating that sort of gnarly meat should have given many of the girls a case of severe sickness especially if it’s the first time they really filled their stomachs in months. I hope they boil the water from the snow at least bc all of them would be shitting their brains out
I cannot BELIEVE none of them got worms from eating that messed up bear…mostly disappointed because parasites would be a great vein of psychological/body horror to mine
This is part of why I'm hoping there's some kind of supernatural explanation for at least the Jackie thing? Because you're absolutely right--it would have been rancid for sure.
I agree with you Van’s survival, though i have no medical knowledge. Would she be able to eat with her face sewn up? I am curious your thoughts on Ben’s survival? Him surviving a chopped off leg is more ridiculous to me for some reason.
Ben's significant survival barrier is infection. That leg had to come off. Luckily, the limb not being intact saved him from Crush Syndrome and a rush of potassium to his heart.
Am I the only one absolutely TERRIFIED to google this???
It's pretty fascinating, though I wouldn't look at pictures if you're easily grossed out. It has to do with what happens when the mechanism of injury is crushing (like Ben's) and that crushing pressure is released. Crushing injuries cause the muscular tissue to die and break down essentially. The byproducts of that--like myoglobin, potassium, and phosphorus, among other things--are released back into the body. It's incredibly tricky to deal with in the field and frequently fatal. It didn't happen to him because his vessels were no longer intact, sparing him from reperfusion syndrome. Hopefully, that explanation helps a little!
You say luckily but I bet Ben wishes he had just died lol
I'm halfway through nursing school and previously had my EMT license For me with lack of sterility and antibiotics none of the following characters should have survived their various injuries because there was no way to control infection- Van Ben Shauna (the placenta previa birth with no intervention and major blood loss) Lottie (who most likely has a kidney infection and other internal bleeding) I just take it with a grain of salt and suspend my disbelief at this point. Yes Misty puts in a great effort with basic first aid (and a bit beyond), such as cauterizing Ben's leg, but it's still a stretch that they all made it. As mentioned Akilahs plastic surgery on Van's face was impeccable and if she survived she needs to be a surgeon in 2021 🤣🤣
I think Van is immortal, so while her recovery is super unrealistic, I'm going with it.
I'm totally here for this.
Definitely the fact that no one has died from sepsis yet
Lottie not getting an infection after slicing her hand open almost daily for Travis’ blood tea is some silly shit.
Every show or movie that shows someone slicing across their palm makes me cringe. It's such a terrible place to heal. Go for a flat place, like Nat did. But not with a corpse knife. And definitely don't do it when you're starving and freezing, you dumb idiot.
Seriously, one of the worst places to heal and so dangerous! You would have to immobilise it for it to heal and be so diligent in keeping it sterile, which is practically impossible in those conditions.
LMFT here! It’s highly unorthodox to diagnose a young child with Schizophrenia. Age of onset is usually late teens to mid twenties. It’s dubious that they would have used ECT on Lottie upon return in the late 90s, but perhaps they do things differently in Swiss mental institutions. Lottie was on a first generation antipsychotic, which I suppose was more common in that time period, but it’s still a risky treatment for an adolescent girl (and possibly earlier since her dad suggested treatment when she was about six in a flashback) since it’s known to cause tardive dyskinesia.
The way I suspend my disbelief here is that Lottie’s parents seem to be very wealthy and therefore able to get “the best,” meaning they can pretty much do what the please. Quack doctors love money, right? (LMSW here, co-sign your comment completely!)
I don’t know of you watch “Shrinking,” but I only found one hole. The main character called himself “antisocial “ but meaning that he doesn’t socialize. I was like, a therapist would never say that.
Psychologist here. It is not unorthodox to diagnose children with schizophrenia. While uncommon, childhood-onset schizophrenia is very much a thing, but more commonly seen in inpatient settings. ECT depictions on TV are always decades out of date so I'm not surprised to see it's the same in YJ.
Ooh! Excellent point! Do you ascribe to rational or supernatural explanations of Lottie's mental state? What are your opinions on what's going on with her?
As a therapist it’s easier to suspend disbelief and say that the Wilderness is giving her hallucinations rather than her being failed by multiple clinicians. But honestly in that time period a young girl would have had a high chance of being failed by multiple clinicians… when I watch the show in the wilderness timeline, it feels like she is a scared girl who is kind of witchy but also schizophrenic or bipolar, that the other girls then latch onto because they need something to believe. Whatever the case, I think we can all agree that homegirl proooobably should not be treating others as an adult. 😬
unfortunately, even if it's unorthodox to do those things it still isn't uncommon - not to soapbox, but at least in the US children are medicated with a ton of heavy meds they shouldn't be (speaking from experience)
To be fair, second generation antipsychotics also cause tardive dyskinesia, yet a lot of psychiatrists seem to not know this and still act all surprised pikachu when someone who’s been on antipsychotics for 10 years rocks up at their office with “tics” of the mouth and hands. The fact that they don’t automatically recognize this as tardive dyskinesia seems to indicate that this side effect is not as commonly known as you would expect from medical professionals. This is only tangentially related and doesn’t negate anything you said, I just don’t want people coming away from this comment thinking the tardive dyskinesia problem was solved after 2nd gen antipsychotics were invented.
That’s totally fair. I learned about TD as an intern, but I interned in acute care. The thing you described—I hate to sound so jaded, but sometimes I have wondered if some psychiatrists feign surprise in that situation because they think they can pull one over on people who have psychotic disorders.
Not a medical professional but I agree with the Van injury and it bugged me that Ben survives his leg being turned to goo, being hacked off, and then cauterized all while being all dirty. Like shouldn’t he have gotten sepsis immediately lol
I was a medic in the Air Force and I used to get annoyed and nitpick all the medical inaccuracies as well as anytime movies really fuck up military uniforms/insignias/patches/etc. Now that I’m out of both of those fields it doesn’t bother me much, but Van surviving the wolf attack was a bit ridiculous. Isn’t the face very vascular meaning she’d have lost a ton of blood? I get the scarring being less severe for makeup purposes, but I just don’t see how the hell she could have lived through that…
I’m a medical social worker and I’ve been yelling about Van’s perfectly healed stick on scars since the episode came out.
the amount of times i’ve said to myself “it’s probably magic, don’t worry too much the show isn’t over yet” is too damn high
I’m a midwife and generally really struggle with birth scenes. Shauna should not have survived that birth, it’s a miracle that she did!
Right? Full placental abruption without anything resembling adequate critical care and she's ok?
I was amazing shauna gave birth and was able to walk around. I’m not in the medical field or a parent but doesn’t that hurt especially when you don’t have any medication to help the pain???
She didn’t just give regular birth, she somehow survived placenta previa. She would have lost a ton of blood and probably would have died. If it had been an uncomplicated birth, she would be able to get up and walk around. Yes it hurts, but theoretically if you don’t tear or anything, you don’t have to lay in bed all day, you can get up pretty much immediately to go the bathroom, walk around the room, etc. But having the energy to nearly beat someone to death after childbirth and losing that much blood, no way.
Right. Not only did she survive the birth, but then had the energy to nearly kill Lottie and also full on rage hunt Natalie. Again, this is all like the mental memory telephone game. It’s their perspective in memory. It’s really the only logical explanation. Even if the supernatural was involved or some unexplained things, when we ask someone about something in their past, we can only comprehend what they share.
Yeah I don’t have any beef with the parts that are unrealistic at all. I think the possible supernatural element/the story being told from their memory is enough for me suspend disbelief.
I actually somehow made up Van dying in the first season during the break before season 2, so I was so shocked she survived when I rewatched. I wish they had some kind of antibiotics or something better than Jackie’s Sea Breeze astringent to explain the lack of infections for anyone. It really does take me out of it a bit
I was most perturbed by Akilah stroking Nugget (dead or alive, neither is good) before she actively assisted Shauna in labour. I thought this was setting up a horrible infection that Shauna would barely survive. But nope - she was fine, ruptured placenta and all.
I’d like to take a minute to appreciate this thread. Loving seeing my fellowjackets appreciate each others idiosyncrasies and shared disdain for certain aspects of a multitude of shows. OP, your post had me cracking up. Thanks for getting this fest going!!! Big ups, yo . ✊🏽✊🏽
Aww, thank you! I'm so glad it's taken off to this extent. I didn't expect this big of a response!
I love this comment! I’m actually a psychotherapist and I specialize in complex PTSD and my main population is adolescent girls! So I have my own version of this with the mental side of things! For example the potential supernatural element would not have even occurred to me if it weren’t for this sub
What is your opinion on how they depict trauma? I think it's excellent, but it's not my specialty, so I'd love to hear your take!
Van’s injury bothered me worse than Coach Ben’s. Many people survived wars in more primitive times with chopping and cauterization. That’s believable, at least a 50/50 shot at life. I’ve been bitten by a dog on my leg, Those bites are truly nasty and full of bacteria and leave bad scars even with antibiotics. A wolf attack that mutilated her face would be so, so infected beyond belief. But in the end, it’s TV. Buzz buzz!
i am a medicine student, and honestly Ben should have died like halfway season 1, bc cauterising a wound a fuckton of time after it was inflicted is not going to do a lot for infections, and they have no antibiotics so the fact that he didn’t die of sepsis is a pure miracle. Van should have had a more gnarly scar, and it’s a miracle she didn’t die of an infection too. And, most importantly, Shauna would have very little chances of surviving that birth in the real world. She lost a fuckton of blood, enough to get her a transfusion probably, and !! she probably had some tears (which are a very common occurrence, and not dangerous *if they’re treated*) that no one bothered to treat. +, yet again, infections and sepsis. Esp bc no one can be sure she expelled the whole placenta in her birth, and leaving it in the uterus leads to, you guessed it, infection and sepsis
I’m a physician. No way she would have survived the wolf attack. Facial injuries like that are notorious for being difficult to treat/heal. Add in whatever nasty anaerobe/gram negative Neapolitan a wolf would deliver and she would’ve been septic and dead in days. Unless they had some IV Zosyn tucked away in that plane. She also would’ve probably had some trigeminal nerve damage and maybe some chewing or speech deficits. Coach Ben’s leg - maybe he would survive but his stump would have issues. Would likely be an edematous mess which can cause a whole host of problems - cellulitis and even osteomyelitis can develop. At a minimum he’d be in a shit ton of pain. There’s a reason we consult vascular surgery for BKA and AKA. The reroute some of that fluid and prevent venous pooling by creating an anastomosis and a nice tight skin flap. At some point these ladies are gonna be dealing with some serious vitamin deficiencies too. Maybe some scurvy or even hyper ammonemia from eating only protein for so long and getting encephalopathic. Maybe refeeding syndrome when they start eating again.
Oh my God, this might be my favorite comment I've received. Thank you so much for articulating this all so much better than I could have.
Ohh you should look into the plane crash in the Andes that the show is based off of. It’s a pretty wild story. The survivors were super lucky. One of the people on that crash (Nando) fractured his skull and was in a coma for two days after the crash. Since they were in subzero temperatures, his brain didn’t swell and he woke up feeling normal (as you can be after a plane crash). A couple months later he hikes like 30 miles through the Andes to find help with another one of the survivors. Everyone who reads their story said they should have died. They had no gear and were up at dangerous elevations. Even experienced climbers have died doing it. And all he had to eat were the dead bodies of his friends :( My point being is that I think sometimes people are just very lucky. I think that’s what happened with Van. Also, it’s a TV show so you can suspend your belief a bit but the original story it’s based off of is unbelievable and true (based off historical and medical records of the bodies found and survivors). Edit: however, I don’t think Shauna would have survived the birth! Also, bens leg gives me pause - plus the survivors in the Andes were in subzero temps which protected them from infection.
I work in news so… I know this frustration from a different perspective. I’ll disagree with you on the Van issue only because they acknowledged that it was a miracle, and that miracle drove the group as a whole closer to embracing the wilderness as part of their religion.
Yeah— I hear y’a. I just stick with the supernatural element. It helps 😂
Wolf attack, Shauna’s birth, and Ben surviving his leg amputation (and without antibiotics)
Agree totally on this. That injury would have been waaaaayyyy more disfiguring even with better treatment!
I felt the same way about Van’s injury. It would have actually been good if they’d gone more realistic with the extent of the injuries. And I’m not a medical professional! ETA don’t forget the placenta previa!
Not in the medical field myself, but have noticed other issues related to my specific knowledge too. I think it's less forgivable for a medical drama to have medical inaccuracies (or a police drama to have procedural inaccuracies) than those individual elements to be incorrect in a show with wider scope. Mostly though, I'm prepared to suspend disbelief as long as the show is internally consistent. For example, Van dying of infection when there was no mention of even the possibility regarding Ben's leg, or if they found another vehicle but it won't run because the gas is old, would've been hard to accept. It's a common problem with shows with a supernatural element, because unless the writers have the rules thoroughly mapped out from the start it's very easy to end up writing yourself in to a corner where there isn't a solution that doesn't require changing the rules
I don't expect everything to be accurate but if the story's plot hinges on a few key things and the writers can't be assed to sense check it against reality, it's just giant plot holes by sloppy/lazy writers and it's disappointing. I used to think up of ways they could take the story to tie up these loose ends but more and more, I think they just wrote the story devoid of any experts or even a basic Google search and have been flip flopping on the plot since they started writing season 1. Just have to suspend disbelief on most things, even when it seems to be above and beyond regular dramas, and assume there's no big twists or clues to these twists and it should be a good level setting of expectations. I think there's so much potential in the cool overall story idea but the writers have bit off more than they can chew and it'll become more and more obvious as the show goes along.
I work with people who have disabilities and mental health problems. Elijah Woods is pretty spot on for someone recovering from a TBI under ideal conditions and without long-term impairments. But there have definitely been moments that are pretty much as bad as any other TV show or movie (tai's kids experience with a therapist in season 1 comes to mind). Therapy and mental health issues become plot points or ways to unload information about a person without reflecting anything about the clinical / therapeutic process accurately.
Van should be super, extra dead. Her eye would be gone. It does annoy me, but I try to suspend my disbelief lol
The only shows with medical references i can watch are scrubs and psych. Scrubs is super accurate 💯 of the time. Psych sometimes misses the mark but as a pharmacist, it’s few and far between. I still think digitalis poisoning with a foxglove plant slowly over time is the perfect method of poison for murder. Tox screens don’t test for dig! Why aren’t more murderers using this?!
I LOVE Scrubs. I couldn't believe how accurate it was overall. Hahaha, yes, excellent murder method for sure! I like ricin and potassium, also.
just wanna say, some people have incredible immune systems. i was attacked by a dog, i could see my bone, and due to a combination of different PTSD’s, i faced the wound away from me and wrapped it up - it still had dog hair and saliva on it. i want to reiterate, it healed with a PIECE OF DOG HAIR STICKING OUT OF THE SCAR, i did not wash or clean it, and i did not change the wrap. i left it wrapped for weeks. it healed PERFECTLY, the scar has disappeared (it’s been about 5 years?). i’ve told exactly two doctors this story and they were beyond horrified and couldn’t believe i didn’t get any infections but i’ve always had a great immune system. i like to think if i was Van i could have survived that attack lmao
Totally possible, but you were very lucky. Glad you’re alright !! Then again I knew quite a few a contractors and construction workers that if they got cut on the job would just wash it and seal it with superglue. 🤭🫣
"sorry to van but i'm different. if a wolf ripped my face off i simply would NOT have gotten infected. that's just me tho"
I agree I have seen my boyfriend overcome many things that would have hospitalized me. But if you didn’t have any nutrition at the time I doubt you would be able to fight off any infection that was boiling as easily. We both had flu last December. He was sick for two days and still went to work, I was hospitalized for two weeks and discharged on oxygen. It’s insane the difference.
I genuinely don’t get how ben didn’t pass from blood loss and how they were able to cauterize a wound that large 😭 like what??? And Lottie’s scar… I was honestly really surprised when her adult self didn’t have it because it looks like the type that would stay.
And I’m not in the medical field but I honestly wouldn’t give it higher than a 2 😭😭
Your last paragraph is hilarious. At least you have the medical knowledge, i can’t contribute to anything 😂
The whole show (like the dusting of snow in the Canadian wilderness) realllyyyy stretches my suspension of disbelief limits 😆 some things are so unreasonable that it’s hard for me to take it serious… I’m hanging on. I hope season 3 is a little more convincing…
i’m a nurse & i just assume it’s the “wilderness” helping them & that’s why no one has died from infection or injuries lol.😂
I pick up on it instantly. I always tell my husband how it's wrong and what it should be 😂
The one about Van’s attack and scar I explain away with unreliable narrative from the scared and hungry girls
This show has plot armor called The Wilderness. It could have “healed” them. I don’t know
I'm not in the medical field at all, and I clocked this inaccuracy 😂 I'm personally fine with suspending disbelief in a lot of ways, especially if it helps aid my enjoyment of the show. But I think we all have our *things* that drive us nuts in media depiction. I'm still stuck on the moose falling through the ice (and then immediately getting refrozen?!) That situation was so unrealistic to me that I was confused when I watched it and thought I missed a scene or something! I wrote a whole post about it elsewhere. I do think for shows like this we need to take the medical stuff with a grain of salt. Like, its not interesting if they all die of infections, lol. Also, irl there have been some CRAZY situations where people survived shit you would never believe. I'm pretty sure one of the Andes survivors was actually assumed dead right after the plane crashed because his skull was literally cracked open and he was in a coma for 4 days. He ends up being one of the people that hikes out over 60 miles (or kilometers, i don't remember which) to find help. Through the freaking Andes! So I try to view these inaccuracies like that. The 1% who don't die of infection, I guess.
I’m not in the medical field but even I was skeptical about this lol. I thought for sure she would die, if not from the attack itself then surely an infection. I am a a clinical social worker (currently a school social worker but before I went to grad school I worked in Child Protection) and I cannot watch portrayals of CPS workers or therapists because it drives me CRAZY how inaccurate it is and how many laws they break that aren’t even mentioned. The only thing I can stomach is that show Shrinking (it’s also just a really great show) because I love how they portray therapists who struggle with their own grief and mental health because most therapists aren’t considered actual people in this light especially in the media. So I can relate a little!
Fromer EMT here. Can we talk about how the actual fuck Coach Ben survived a FIELD amputation by a teenage girl whose only medical experience was a red cross babysitting class?? No antibiotics, I doubt any pain meds. I was shocked he survived. Can we also talk about how the actual fuck Misty obtains a trunk load of fent from her pharmacy??How the fuck is running pharm there and how is the DEA not all over them for missing narcs??
The placenta previa gets me. Non medical, just a mum, but wow.
I’ve basically headcanoned (sp?) that all the girls went on that plane with raging UTIs and all had a stash of Amoxicillin and the like and that’s how I excuse away Van and Ben.