USA Today reported today that a 42 year old Taiwanese man died after watching the movie Avatar.  He apparently had a history of high blood pressure and felt “ill” while watching the movie.  He went to the hospital, where imaging of his brain showed a hemorrhagic stroke.  The doctor who took care of him diagnosed his condition as being a consequence of watching the movie.

Yes, high blood pressure predisposes one to complications of hypertension such as hemorrhagic stroke; however, it seems hard to conclude that “excitement” caused by watching this movie would have raised one’s blood pressure above that threshold needed to cause intracranial hemorrhage.  I saw the movie – it’s great and exciting and probably raises one’s blood pressure above a resting rate.  But could it raise this patient’s blood pressure more than walking from the car to the movie theater?  Or higher than when he walked up the steps to find a seat the perfect distance from the movie screen?  Maybe the exertion and excitement, combined with all the salt from the popcorn and soda he consumed while watching it was enough to raise his blood pressure and cause the hemorrhage.  Maybe the doctor should also diagnose the concession food items as contributing factors.

So who’s going to get sued?  That’s the quetion on everyone’s minds. Maybe the movie  – or the theatre – or Orville Redenbacher – or CocaCola.  How about realizing that poorly controlled high blood pressure has long term consequences?

Tags: hemorrhage, movies

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 8:53 pm and is filed under Entertainment, In the News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.