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Asystole (the lack of cardiac activity, also known as the 'flatline') is not treated with defibrillation (electric shocks) but with alternating doses of the drugs epinephrine and atropine. See more...

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Flatliners (1990) - 4 corrections

starring Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Oliver Platt, William Baldwin (add more)

Genres: Horror, Thriller, Sci-fi

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During the defibrillation scenes, the 'doctors' rub the paddles together before delivering the electrical shock. Yet there is no gel on the paddles, and no gel pads on the 'patient' either. [A character mistake. All of them are still students, and may have forgotten to add the gel in the high stressed situation.]

Edit Corrected by MasterOfAll

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When Kevin Bacon is going to confront his past demon, Kiefer Sutherland offers to with for the drive. Kevin Bacon replies that it is a two hour drive to Benesenville, IL from the University of Chicago. Even in heavy traffic, the drive should take no more than one hour. [Kevin Bacons character may have wanted to go alone. By saying it was a two hour drive Kevin Bacons character may have been hoping that Keifer Sutherlands character might have changed his mind about wanting to come.]

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Towards the end when Kiefer Sutherland goes under for the second time and the others rush in to find him, they need injections to aid in his revival. Julia Roberts tells the others that she is injecting "epi. intracardial" and plunges the needle into Sutherland's chest. The area where she sticks the needle IS where the heart should be, however, the heart is surrounded and protected by the sternum bone. If she was trying to inject it into the heart, shouldn't she have done so from a different angle? It DOES appear that the needle went through, but that would have to be a very strong needle to be able to not break, hitting bone. [The heart is not "surrounded" by the sternum, which is the flat bone that ribs connect to at the front of the chest. The heart isn't even completely covered by the sternum, the heart is wider than the sternum and isn't in the exact center of the chest anyway.]

Edit Corrected by Myridon

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In the final scene, Julia Roberts comes charging in to explain to the group that Kiefer Sutherland called her to tell her of his plan to flatline and that was about 9 minutes ago. So in an important plot line, everyone uses that number as the amount of time Kiefer has been under. But by the time he made the call to the time he actually ran into the abandoned church, turned on all the equipment, set himself up and eventually injected potassium into his arm, you'd have to figure at least 2-3 minutes elapsed before he actually flatlined. Why didn't the group take that into account? [Inasmuch as they didn't know exactly how much time they had to spare, they used the worst case scenario.]

Edit Corrected by Bob Blumenfeld

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