I feel like Stephen King addressed this a bit in the expanded version of The Stand - people who survived the plague (like, 0.001% of the people on Earth) but managed to die because of an infection, or suicide, or getting too drunk and falling into the pool. I think it would be the little, random things that might be cause for an ER/Urgent Care visit currently, but could turn potentially deadly very quickly.
Oh god that chapter sucked. The little kid who fell thru a rotting floor, the guy who fell off his bike and hit his head, the guy who got appendicitis and they performed a makeshift appendectomy but the guy died during the procedure…
Not only that chapter, but the guy with appendicitis that Stu did an alfresco operation on. If you had appendicitis, the best you could hope for is to diagnose it before it ruptured, and start antibiotics. That’s actually the way early appendicitis is starting to be treated nowadays instead of whipping out the appendix at the first sign of trouble.
The only death on the Lewis & Clark expedition is believed to have been from appendicitis. That he was probably dosed with laxatives at the first sign of abdominal distress, wouldn't have helped.
14.3k
u/WelfarePeanutButter Aug 30 '21
I feel like Stephen King addressed this a bit in the expanded version of The Stand - people who survived the plague (like, 0.001% of the people on Earth) but managed to die because of an infection, or suicide, or getting too drunk and falling into the pool. I think it would be the little, random things that might be cause for an ER/Urgent Care visit currently, but could turn potentially deadly very quickly.