Last weekend I rented the newest Batman movie, The Dark Night Rises, and watched it with my older kids. Having young sons allows me to watch superhero movies and play on the PlayStation, and I can call it parenting, not procrastinating or wasting time! Anyway, while I enjoyed the Batman movie, I was disturbed by one of Batman’s new tricks. During some of the chase scenes, which take up most of the film, Batman managed to disable all of the electrical equipment around him using some kind of frequency. Since in this movie, unlike most Bond films and previous Batman films there weren’t many explanations about the new gadgets being used, it’s hard to now how the gadget worked. The reason it disturbed me was because I kept thinking about my insulin pump.
What if someone with diabetes, a pumper, was nearby? Would his pump be disabled? Would it come back to life or would he need a replacement, the way I needed one after going through the x-ray machine at the airport? For some reason this line of thought did not leave my mind for a few days.
This morning while running by myself, again I started to think about Batman’s gadget, realizing that there are people out there with much bigger problems than my pump. I mean, what would it do to a pacemaker? This very cool gadget that turned off city lights could kill innocent people.
I know it’s only a movie, and that Batman, even as the dark night, certainly wouldn’t risk innocent people’s lives. What I really want to know is do other people think this way? Do others have an ever present anxiety that the thing, the device, they count on for survival could be destroyed at the press of a button?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gFwvozMHR4[/youtube]
Yes, I have a defibrillator and it can be turned off with magnetis. i do worry that can happen and I might not know it.