IS IT BOLLOCKS?

Film Buff investigates the facts behind outlandish movie plots.

Self-cauterising with a chef’s torch right before flying: good idea or not?

QIn The Hunt, Betty Gilpin’s hardass cauterises a wound from a mixer blade with a chef’s torch, before donning a ball gown and boarding a plane. A recipe for disaster or a realistic confection?

AHARRIET SHAW ROBERTS, REGISTERED INTENSIVE CARE NURSE

Cauterising a wound with a flame will burn the skin and healthy tissue. Cauterisation is done by heating metal and placing it on the wound in short one to two-second bursts to avoid killing healthy tissue. Using a chef’s torch would target a larger area than using a metal rod, thus rendering it less precise or accurate. She should have cleaned the wound first; cauterisation can lead to infection, especially if you damage the healthy tissue around the wound.

In a hospital, cauterisation is done in an operating theatre in a sterile environment, to reduce the risk of infection. And the patient would still receive antibiotics afterwards. [Gilpin’s character] would definitely need to seek medical advice; she would need the wound properly cleaned out and potentially stitched closed – and she’d also need antibiotics.

Would she be able to take the pain? Everyone has different pain thresholds, so she wouldn’t necessarily pass out. It would be a better idea to sit down while doing it, though! And she’s right to bite down on a wooden spoon, it would be excruciatingly painful. As for throwing on a ball gown and walking about happily afterwards… if you’ve had a few drinks and popped some strong painkillers, then in theory, yes! But it depends on how deep the wound is, if it has affected any internal organs, how much blood she’s lost, etc. And she’d need to put some kind of a dressing on the wound for it not to be irritated by a tight ball gown.