something something hearts

have taken some basic trauma aid and read up on what the military folks do, and something that surprised me is the needle decompression minimum depth is 2 inches (and that only works in around 60% of the population, a lot of people have deeper pec muscles). recommended being around 2.5 inches penetration depth.

needle decompression is used in field emergencies when someone gets a collapsed lung from some sort penetrating wound. the hole will suck air in but not let it out and build up pressure that can cause your heart to stop working properly. a field medic can punch a needle into your lung to relieve the pressure (literally, needle decompression). it's not pleasant or permanent but it's used to help someone make it to higher level care. not something civilians are trained to do nor is it something most EMT's do, more something that a military medic or helicopter medic will be trained on doing since they're farther away from higher level care. requires a decent amount of training and risk acceptance to ensure you are going into a more blank spot in the chest away from anything bad. (*and ironically enough, one needle usually isn't enough unlike what the movies show, what with anatomy being weird and such).

most of the dark heart people aren't going that deep, likely from lack of awareness of how deep the pec muscle really is. i suppose it's deep enough for electricity to have localized effects. any bobbing around is due to just the surface skin/muscle being pushed around from the internal air pressure (that's usually what 'visible' beats are anyways). if someone were to go all the way through and actually touch heart muscle though, that goes wrong very VERY fast.

i like hearts because i've always felt like they tell you if someone is ok or having a good time, so dark cardiophilia has always been a gray zone for me. however sticking needles into oneself in that area isn't a good idea at all in my opinion. 2 inches, playing with fire basically.