Flatliners

Factual error: 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.

Factual error: When they jump-start Rachel's heart, she's wearing a bra. As medical students, one of the first things they would have learned is CPR and the use of defibrillators. They should have known to remove things like that or the electricity would have left burns on her chest, particularly where any metal touches.

Factual error: Nelson crosses a vacant street and enters a subway station where he encounters the child ghost that is haunting him. The corner exists, it is called "Six Corners" because three streets come together, and is in Chicago's Wicker Park Neighborhood. However, the train station at that corner is an elevated train, not a subway - this scene is filmed at Damen, Milwaukee, and North Avenues. The real Six Corners is Cicero Ave, Irving Park Rd, and Milwaukee Ave.

Factual error: Julie Roberts can't intubate because the trachea is "tight." This is laryngospasm, the vocal cords clamping shut. If so, neither mouth to mouth nor mask will work, but more importantly, no heart beat equals no blood to muscles, and they would relax and be open anyway. I think they just didn't want to fake a half tube coming out of Sutherland's mouth.

Revealing mistake: When Nelson first undergoes the experiment, the doctors use a small mask to put him to sleep. When he is supposedly waking up, Rachel asks Randy to help her with oxygen. He hands her the same small mask they used the first time ie. anesthetic. Just for a second she has a look on her face which says "this is the wrong mask" and she tries to hide it with her hand. For the whole rest of the film, the other doctors use a bigger mask when giving oxygen.

More mistakes in Flatliners

Nelson Wright: Hello, I'm nice, he's nice, we're both fucking lunatics. Can I come in, please?

More quotes from Flatliners

Question: When David drives up to see Winnie to apologize for his childhood behaviour, he drives up to the house through what looks like the woods. Does anyone know that area of IL (Bensonville) and why there would be no formal road leading to Winnie's house?

ChiChi

Chosen answer: I don't know the area, but there is nothing unusual about a dirt road leading to a house, both my wife's parents and her brother have a long dirt road that leads to the house from a major road. It's common as the city or county doesn't usually have the budget to pave/maintain roads out past the city limits.

Grumpy Scot

More questions & answers from Flatliners

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.