Actor Leslie Nielsen Dies at 84
An anonymous reader writes "Famous actor Leslie Nielsen died of pneumonia at a Florida hospital Sunday evening. Leslie was renowned for his comedic roles in dozens of films and TV shows, such as The Naked Gun and Police Squad. His characteristic style and humor was always enjoyable, and he will be sorely missed." Of course you might also remember him from The Forbidden Planet, which is classic sci-fi by any measure.
peter graves...
-- derby
Ever had pneumonia?
You can barely breathe, your coughing mucus from your lungs, and you feel the life disappearing from you.
It's not a sleeping disease, unless you've been put to sleep by meds.
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Time to re-watch Forbidden Planet.
If you haven't seen it, do so! It's a true classic of sci-fi.
Trolling is a art,
had it for 2 or 3 months one time. it redefined 'sickness' all before then and all after then, as well, for me. worst time in my life and hope I never get another of those. I should have been in the hospital since I could not breathe well (fighting most of the time to breathe). doctors could not do anything and just cycled antibiotics almost like going down a search-list, just serially trying things hoping something would work.
I hope it was not painful for him. fighting to breathe is not a pleasant way to be (or to go).
I was in my 30's at the time and it nearly killed me.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Neither do I, but 5 minutes googling will tell you that we do have such machines, but you can't use them for more than a few hours at a time. Fine for surgery, pretty useless for pneumonia.
(A bit further reading will suggest that there do exist machines which aren't as limited - I wonder if you're getting to the edges of what is possible and what is very much post-doctoral research stuff at this point?)
Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) is probably what you're looking for. That being said, it not for any length of time and has very serious risks. Much safer to be intubated and put on a ventilator for a couple weeks.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I was honored to meet him at a SciFi show a couple years ago, he was very pleasant and seemed to really enjoy the fact that he still had so many fans. He will be greatly missed!