Divemedic

POP Charges

Edgardo Cancela of Davenport, FL in Polk county was charged with possession of child porn after detectives claimed that they found “files depicting child pornography with pre-pubescent victims” that Facebook claimed had come from an IP address associated with Mrs. Cancela (Edgardo’s wife). The issue here is that the IP address was for a cell phone account that the Cancelas had stopped using when they moved from Puerto Rico to Florida more than a year before.

The cops secured a search warrant for the Cancela’s home, and in May of 2020, they executed that warrant. In the process of searching the home, they used electronic means to scan every electronic device in the home, looking for evidence of child porn. None was found. Also during that search, the couple’s children (ages 10 and 13) were taken by DCF and interviewed. Both children denied ever having been improperly touched or photographed by either parent.

The couple returned home from work while the search was underway, police took them into custody and brought them in for questioning. Even though the cell phones were not named on the search warrant, the police confiscated their cell phones. The cops applied for a second search warrant, covering the cell phones, and the couple was asked to provide passcodes for their cell phones so that cops could see for themselves that they had “nothing to hide.” The couple told them that they wanted to talk to an attorney first.

Despite the fact that the only piece of evidence was the Facebook claim that the wife’s IP address was associated with child porn images, it was the husband who was then arrested and charged with possession of child pornography. The terms of his release were that he was not allowed to see his wife or children and could not even live inside of his own home. The cops then released his name and address to the media, along with information about the alleged crime.

The cops, in filing the child porn charges, made a number of factually incorrect statements. In other words, they lied on the charging affidavit. That’s a felony.

The charges were dropped a year and a half later because police didn’t actually have the evidence that Cancela was the person who possessed or posted the images, despite the charging affidavit claiming that they did. Here is the odd part- all of the video and audio recordings of the search of the home and the interrogation of Mr. Cancela- recordings that show he was being railroaded- are mysteriously missing.

So he is suing. The problem here is that police can’t be held personally liable for their conduct. It’s the taxpayers of Florida that will pay for this. It’s time to end immunity for cops. Let’s force them to get malpractice insurance.

By Divemedic, ago

Tough Week

I am still sick, though not as sick as I was. It began on Saturday the 20th, and by Tuesday the 24th I was seeing a fever that was as high as 102F and a resting heart rate in the 120s. I missed a week of work. The fever finally broke on Friday, but I have this lingering cough that I just can’t shake. Even now, I am sleeping in a chair at night because it’s just too taxing to breathe while lying down. I don’t know what this is, but it is kicking my ass. I’ve lost 15 pounds in the past ten days.

On top of that, there is a nurse where I work that for years has been such a pain in the hindquarters that everyone avoids her. Whenever anyone mentions her name, whoever is in earshot rolls their eyes. She routinely makes other nurses cry. I don’t know why admin puts up with her.

Well, guess who has to work with her for the next two months? Yesterday was our second day working together, and I snapped. I asked to be assigned with someone else, but the scheduler claims that’s all I have to work with. I am asking for a meeting with the department manager. That’s all of the details I can give on here, but let’s just say that the last week or so hasn’t been great.

By Divemedic, ago

Goodbye, Annie

Just when I thought we were able to get away from the “cops abusing authority” trope. A cop was assisting the sheriff’s department with a call about an unpaid child support complaint, when he noticed a deer that local residents had been feeding. When the deer approached the officer and allowed him to pat its head, he took it upon himself to declare that it was a domesticated wild animal, declared that it was illegal, and then proceeded to pin the deer to the ground, pulled out his service weapon, and shot the deer in the head. In full view of horrified children that had considered the deer to be their friend.

Pokagon Band Tribal Police released a statement saying it was arresting a suspect at the same property when the deer was “euthanized”. That is copspeak for “he was following our nonexistent procedures, and we are whitewashing the entire thing.”

In summary, a “bad” cop does something illegal that he would gladly arrest anyone else for. Other cops witness this, standing there with their hands in their pockets. The “good cops” whitewash the entire thing and expect us to “back the blue.”

By Divemedic, ago

I Have Questions

Internet rando Eddie, claiming to be an “Alpha male” says that he is tired of waiting for Congress to act, so he going door to door and confiscating guns. Anyone who resists will be placed under citizens arrest.

  • Under what legal theory or authority will this be carried out?
  • Will Eddie and his fellow gun grabbers be armed?
  • If not, how many houses will they enter before finding out?
  • If they are, will they place themselves under arrest?

Oh, wait. He is Canadian.

By Divemedic, ago

A Few Errors Here

Kudos to the 14 year old girl that had the presence of mind to collect her 4 year old sister, her dog, and then escaped the house when a man broke in to their home while holding a stolen shotgun. There are some lessons to be learned here:

  • The man got the shotgun after earlier breaking into a different house, hitting the woman who lives there, and taking it from her. If you don’t have the guts to USE a firearm when it is clearly indicated, you shouldn’t own a firearm.
  • No one in this case pressed charges because they want him to “get the help that he needs.” There is no help that will fix this guy’s problem- dementia. This guy will get out of the hospital in a few days and be free to do this again. Maybe he kills someone next time.

A dude breaks into your house. You have a gun. Shoot him. If you don’t, then both of you have a gun, then eventually, HE has a gun. How would you feel, knowing that the guy hit you, stole your gun, then killed two little girls with it?

By Divemedic, ago

Ventilation

The lungs are the organ that allows oxygen to enter the body and carbon dioxide to leave the body. They accomplish this by permitting gas to enter small sacs called alveoli. These sacs allow the exchange of gas across their membrane. The alveoli stay open through the use of a surfactant. In an infection, it can travel to the lungs and cause a potentially fatal condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). In ARDS, the alveoli fill with a fluid that is essentially pus, which diminishes the lungs’ ability to provide vital organs with enough oxygen. There are ways that we can fight that.

If the patient is conscious and able to keep their own airway open, we can put them on CPAP or BiPAP, which is a mask that pressurizes the air that the person is breathing. This extra pressure forces the fluid out of the alveoli and back into the bloodstream. If a person can’t maintain their own airway, they will be intubated and placed on a ventilator. That ventilator will provide pressurized oxygen, and this is called PEEP. You can see it at work here, where a mechanical ventilator is working on a set of pig lungs as a demonstration:

As doctors have gained more experience treating patients with COVID-19, they’ve found that many can avoid ventilation—or do better while on ventilators—when they are turned over to lie on their stomachs. This is called prone positioning, or proning. Because of how the lungs are positioned, this lets you use parts of your lungs that aren’t being used when you are on your back, because it reduces pressure from the heart and diaphragm on the lungs, which allows them to inflate more easily.

If we are talking about emergency intubations (IOW not for procedural reasons), the only people who get intubated and placed on a vent are really sick. People colloquially refer to this as “being on life support.” Anyone can tell you that a person who isn’t adequately breathing on their own is pretty sick. So, for starters, anyone who is being intubated is a pretty sick puppy.

The most common complications in COVID-19 infections are bilateral pneumonia which may progressed to ARDS, sepsis and septic shock, acute kidney injury and others such as acute cardiac injury, coagulopathy, hyponatremia (low sodium levels in the blood) and acidosis (blood Ph too low). Complications are more likely in serious sickness versus non-extreme illness.

On top of that, there are risks for mechanical ventilation: overinflating the lungs, oxygen toxicity, and other issues are possible complications. These complications are more likely in people with ARDS, diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic heart or lung disease, and obesity all are at higher risk of complications from mechanical ventilation. You will recall that these same risk factors also make a patient more susceptible to COVID.

If your COVID infection is bad enough that it is collapsing your alveoli, you likely have problems with other organs as well- specifically the liver, heart, and kidneys. Remember- the same cytokine storm that is damaging the lungs is also damaging other organs as well. This can cause the development of something called MODS (multiple organ dysfunction syndrome). What causes about 20% of COVID deaths is MODS, and is not due to the use of a ventilator. Three quarters of the people who developed MODS already had underlying problems like kidney or heart disease, diabetes, or were morbidly obese.

The simple fact is that we in health care are using other methods for treating low blood oxygen caused by COVID, such as high flow devices (up to 60 liters of oxygen per minute) to try and delay or put off the need to mechanically ventilate a patient, but once you are sick enough from COVID to need a ventilator, you are really sick and your likelihood for surviving is low.

By Divemedic, ago