The conversation examines the possibility of waking up during surgery while paralyzed, a scenario Gerritsen traces to anesthesiologists stealing drugs and leaving patients conscious but unable to signal for help. Art shares his own experience of enduring four hours of surgery with inadequate anesthesia in the Air Force. They discuss near-death experiences, with Gerritsen offering the scientific explanation of oxygen deprivation while acknowledging the haunted hospital room in Hawaii where patients repeatedly reported seeing the same ghostly figure.
Gerritsen recounts the history of puerperal fever, the childbirth infection that killed up to 20 percent of women in 18th and 19th century hospitals. She tells the story of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, who proved handwashing could reduce deaths tenfold but was driven to an asylum by colleagues who refused to accept their hands were spreading disease.
Key Moments
Anesthesia Awareness Horror Stories: Gerritsen describes patients paralyzed by curare-like agents but underanesthetized - fully feeling surgery while unable to signal. Bell counters with his own four-hour Air Force operation done on xylocaine alone.
Woman Pronounced Dead Wakes Up in Body Bag: Gerritsen recounts the true Boston case that inspired her novel Vanish - a young woman zipped into a body bag after an apparent overdose, then woke up hours later at the morgue and walked out alive.
The Hawaii Nurse Who Could Smell Death: Gerritsen describes a Catholic-hospital nun-nurse who quietly blessed patients she sensed would die - including healthy-looking ones - and a hospital room nurses left empty because patients repeatedly reported a man in a hospital gown standing over their beds.
Semmelweis and the Doctors Who Refused to Wash Their Hands: Gerritsen tells the story of childbirth fever - doctors moving from autopsy rooms straight to delivery wards, killing women at far higher rates than midwives. Dr. Semmelweis cut mortality tenfold by ordering handwashing and was hounded into an insane asylum, where he died of sepsis.
Bird Flu Family Plan: Withdraw From Society: Discussing H5N1 with 30–70% mortality, Gerritsen reveals her actual preparedness plan - son ready to leave college on a phone call, food and firewood stockpiled, lake access for water, ready to ride out at least three months. Bell asks if a country might nuke its own province to contain it.