Forceps, Scalpel and Cell Phone

When there is a blackout, you’d like to think that places like hospitals, with their emergency rooms and operating rooms and life support systems would have working back-up generators, so, you know, in case of anything like loosing all power, there would be a back up for it.

Well, as it turns out there is a hospital in Argentina that during a recent blackout had their emergency generator fail to switch on. At the time there was at least one patient who was on the operating table at the time under anesthesia. Instead of ending the surgery there and then, the patients family members collected a bunch of cell phones and provided enough light so that the doctors could continue with the operation. Both Reuters and AOL have articles on it. And, of course in typical fashion, the hospital is claiming that the operation was without light for at most 20 minutes, the patients brother says it was closer to an hour.