Word: panorama
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1980
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...nifty racket going: in order to acquire valuable organs for transplant surgery, they slip patients into unconsciousness, then declare them irreversibly braindamaged. If a recent television program in Britain were to be believed, Coma is not so far off the mark. The show, part of the BBC'S Panorama program, asked the question Transplants: Are the Donors Really Dead? The shocking answer: maybe...
...Panorama arrived at its conclusion after examining methods used by doctors to determine "brain death." The concept holds that a person is dead when the brain has permanently stopped functioning; the heart and lungs can be kept going by machines. In Britain, doctors must figure out what caused the patient's condition-say, a blow to the head-and then do an extensive series of tests. Among them: shining light into the eyes to see if the pupils contract, spurting ice-cold water into the ears to check whether the eyes react by quivering. In the U.S., physicians also...
...which Panorama pushed, is also controversial. Doctors note that people who are alive can have a flat EEG, suggesting no brain activity. Moreover, even inanimate matter can appear to have life. A doctor once wired a plate of Jell-O in an intensive care unit and proved it was "alive"; the electrodes picked up impulses from equipment in the room. Says Plum: "EEGS are done more as a reassuring step to doctor and family than because they are any more foolproof than good clinical observation...
...worst of the brushfires was "Panorama," and it certainly lived up to its' name. In its panoramic sweep the fire burned out 23,000 acres in San Bernardino County, the area hardest hit by the flames. Started by arson, the fire storm burned down the hillsides into the San Bernardino suburbs, then back up through Waterman Canyon. In affluent North Park, a roaring wall of flame incinerated whole blocks of expensive houses, leaving nothing but ashen rectangles and soot-covered swimming pools. Four died: an elderly couple who perished as they tried to save a pet, and two other...
...after Panorama roared through San Bernardino, Mail Carrier Kathy Holland stopped her Jeep at a charred and empty lot on Sepulveda Avenue. "God, that one's gone too," she sighed, as she returned yet another packet of mail to her pouch. An engineer who came back to sift through the ashes of his home found his Thanksgiving turkey, frozen before the fire, charred to a crisp in the freezer. Another victim, Tony Marzullo, attempted to salvage humor from tragedy by spraying a For Sale-Cheap sign on what used to be a freezer and propping it up on what...