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.

Continuity mistake: Rachel's father kills himself after returning home from the Vietnam war (presumably in the early 70's) addicted to morphine. The problem with this is that he kills himself in a 1978 or '79 Ford pickup - Ford did not produce any pick-ups with square headlights until those years.

More mistakes in Flatliners

Nelson Wright: Somehow we've brought our sins back physically. And they're pissed.

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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

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