Here's a summary of the episode in question. For background, a very old woman has just died (or is in the process of dying) of an apparent heart attack on a dance floor in Kiyoka, surrounded by player characters, and a mob of dancing NPCs who can be ignored in all this -- with the single, important exception of her similarly aged, loving, and obviously horrified, husband. One of them is doing her very best to make an incredibly dreadful experience slightly less dreadful, at least for the husband if not for the dying woman...
I find this action, while incredibly noble on Desiree's part, to be ... troubling.Desiree wrote:"Keep trying," I say to Therese. While she attends the heart, I bend over the woman and press my lips against hers. I breathe into her, calling on Anilis to aid me. I fill her lungs with air and magic. While I keep breathing into her, I draw one hand around and move it up her back, up her neck, and over her head. The magic in her blood follows my hand. I pull her blood, which her heart can no longer pump, up into her head.
Her eyes open and she gasps. I pull back to give her some space, but I keep my hands on her head to keep her blood flowing.
"You're heart's stopped," I tell her. "I not from around here, so I don't know if there's anything that can be done about that. If there's not... you have time to say goodbye to your husband." And if there is, I hope someone who knows what they're doing gets their ass over here soon. This bypass spell isn't going to last long.
Here's what's bugging me. I know very little about brain death, having not been there with any of my departed loved ones as they passed through it. (I'm not sure whether to add "I'm happy to say," on the grounds of having been spared such an experience, or "I'm sad to say," on the grounds that it might -- might -- have been comforting to them if I'd been there when it happened; therefore I will add neither.) However, it is my understanding, based only on things I've read in less-than-authoritative sources, that what Desiree is doing here is not a merciful thing, however well-intentioned it obviously is. My reasoning, such as it is, is that in a situation like this, the near-instant cessation of heart activity will have caused a similarly instantaneous drop in blood pressure in the brain, so that the poor woman simply loses consciousness within seconds at most. Prolonging that consciousness, even for the noble purpose of giving the dying woman a chance at a last goodbye, will mean awareness of her body shutting down around her mind ... which would be unpleasant. As Drusia, playing Desiree, puts it:
Last things first: if the pain is there, I'm pretty sure that all three women ministering to the victim would be doing what they could, along with their unsuccessful attempts at resuscitation, to mitigate it; they're all compassionate, caring human beings as well as Healers, no need to worry about that. But what I wonder is whether there would be any pain ... if steps hadn't been taken to keep that fading mind alive. Drusia, I'm not sure what you mean by "muscle death," and honestly, I'm not sure I want to know... but it sounds bad.Drusia wrote:OOC2: Oh, and the woman is probably in a fair amount of pain - muscle death is quiet painful. Unless Therese's attentios are soothing that pain somewhat.
So how badly mistaken am I in this? Again, sorry to raise a seriously gruesome subject, but some answers will help guide the next round of interactions in that thread -- as well as giving us things to think about that we'd probably rather not.