What would a real bomb squad do?

February 16, 2006 2:26 PM

Last Sunday's Grey's Anatomy episode is bothering me. At the end of the episode, Dylan (the bomb squad guy) takes the bazooka shell from Meredith and slowly walks out of the room. This seems illogical/silly/non-bomb-squady to me.

In reality, wouldn't/shouldn't he have placed the shell into some sort of explosion-proof box (or something) that was waiting right next to him? What would a real bomb squad do? Would he really have been trained to walk away with it in his hands?

As it stands, Dylan's training on the show indicates that bomb squad members are just good at keeping people calm and telling them to keep the bomb 'level'. (Rather than, say, containing bomb explosions.)

posted by Kololo to science & nature (39 comments total)

Good question!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:26 PM on February 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

He paid for his stupidity, too, didn't he??
posted by elquien at 2:28 PM on February 16, 2006

Very good question. I was thinking that they had to get it out of the room since they still had to operate on the guy once the bomb was out. But I guess that doesn't really answer your question.
posted by emoeby at 2:36 PM on February 16, 2006

At the very least, he would have been wearing, oh, a HELMET. And walking down the hall with an improvised bazooka shell rang really false to me as well, especially considering the kinds of nasty explosive crap that hospitals contain.

Oh, and that other guy that got blown up too? He wouldn't have been right there. There wasn't a good reason for it except drama.

Failing anything else, I would have had a really big container of water in a strong vessel there to put the shell into before moving it out of the room. It's amazing how much shock water can absorb.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 2:37 PM on February 16, 2006

A helmet would have hidden his pretty face.

But I agree, that while the episode was dramatic, the fact that the shell wasn't immediately put into some kind of container rang patently false to me.

Yes, I was surprised by the explosion, but the absence of a container took me out of the moment.
posted by AuntLisa at 2:49 PM on February 16, 2006

Most of the bomb squad fellows wear this when they are actually playing with something explosive. If they can move the bomb they will put inside a reinforced conatiner similar to the one this truck is pulling.
posted by Ateo Fiel at 2:50 PM on February 16, 2006

He'd be wearing a blast protection suit, he'd remove it to a cleared area and detonate it in a safe manner. A primitive way is in a pit, but a better way is to put it in a tent, fill it with a special foam and detonate it.

Oh, and the hospital would be evacuated (as much as possible) and crawling with police and/or military response units (I'm not sure who has the first-response role for explosives in the US).
posted by bonehead at 2:51 PM on February 16, 2006

I thought exactly the same thing (about the bomb bin) while watching. But of course then they couldn't have had Meredith follow him out the door (we all screamed "Nooo!" when she did that because it was obvious what was going to happen next.)
posted by Opposite George at 2:53 PM on February 16, 2006

on the other hand, the good thing is that the show didn't make you sit real-time through all the hours of paperwork all involved had to fill out afterward...sometimes it's cool that fiction is fictional...
posted by troybob at 3:04 PM on February 16, 2006

Yeah, seriously, I thought THE EXACT SAME THING. Why would they make that poor guy walk ALL THE WAY DOWN THE HALL!!! It was a nice try, but they really dropped the ball as far as "reality" was concerned.
posted by ebeeb at 3:05 PM on February 16, 2006

*spoiler*

The question is, what kind of portable bomb container do they have? They did evacuate. The bomb squad guy would have worn a bomb suit, but that's bad TV. You need to have the connection with the guy when he bites it, so you have to see his face unimpeded.

The container Ateo Fiel links to would not work -- this was the second story of an ER. They could not detonate at their leisure -- there was a seriously injured patient that needed surgery. The bomb would have be removed from the ER, if at all possible.

So do they have portable bomb containers? Because they'd have to have one to avoid tragedy in this situation. (Unless they just write the victim off as dead, and put him in a bomb container).
posted by teece at 3:05 PM on February 16, 2006

What can you say? Drama and reality don't intersect as often as we'd like.

However, I didn't think that the presentation was too unbelievable given the fact that the bomb was in some guy's torso in an operating room in the basement of a hospital. That's definitely not the stereotypical bomb squad scenario, so I doubt that they really had much technical advice to go on.
posted by MrZero at 3:06 PM on February 16, 2006

Dipsomaniac, stay the hell away from my explosives! Water cannot be compressed! You're basically just spreading out the blast damage over whatever surface area the water is. Water as shrapnel is still shrapnel!

"It's amazing how much shock water can absorb."

Is that like a trick or something? The amazing ZERO! Water will transfer an amazing >99% of the force imparted to it! (Some will become heat, but not much.)

This is why bomb squads use water cannons to 'dissect' bombs or suspicious packages.
posted by tiamat at 3:10 PM on February 16, 2006

The whole episode I thought "Merideth is not going to die. The show is NAMED after her."

They should have had someone who could have left the show and it wouldn't have been such a big deal.
posted by k8t at 3:12 PM on February 16, 2006

I've only tuned into this show a couple times. Earlier on it seemed like an ER type show with some dippy music and narration. Hospital drama, young doctors, tough bosses, etc. Decent soap opera stuff.

Tuning in last Sunday 15 minutes into the show, I realized that the entire television industry jumped the shark with this episode... A bomb inside a human being on an operating table. The supervisor doctor deliberately not giving birth because her husband was being operated on for a brain condition in the same hospital at the same time...

Redefined 'far-fetched' for a generation, if you ask me. I called my wife into the room just to show her how completely ridiculous it was.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 3:24 PM on February 16, 2006

And as mentioned by k8t, it was plainly obvious that the main character-whom the show is named after- was not going to die.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 3:26 PM on February 16, 2006

Too bad the bomb squad died.. Him and Meredith would have made a cute couple. McDreamy needs to patch it up with his wife for real or quit trying.
posted by Relly70 at 3:26 PM on February 16, 2006

Water will transfer an amazing >99% of the force imparted to it.

That's true - as long as the water cannot move. But if it can it's quite good at dissipating forces.

That's a last-ditch option, remember? I didn't say it was the best, but you're not going to get a blast-box into a hospital.

There's a reason why those barrels at the point of the guardrails at off-ramps are filled with water, you know.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 3:31 PM on February 16, 2006

And in this realistic show, after the explosion why was she

a) uninjured
and
b) Showered with her two hot nurse friends in a pseudo-lesbian wet massage fest......

Oh wait: showering chicks.....what was the question again?
posted by lalochezia at 3:40 PM on February 16, 2006

(Aren't they filled with sand? Also, I recently learned that the front of the Caltrain engine is filled with sand too. Presumably to disappate the energy of a collision. Why would that work?)
posted by metaculpa at 3:42 PM on February 16, 2006

I thought the same thing. I'm sure there is *some* sort of portable device that would at least be more effective than the guy's hands. I forgave the lack of a proper suit/helmet because of the need to connect with the character and see his face and what-not. And I knew Meredith would not die because, with the exception of Valerie Harper, I am not aware of any namesake characters dying in the second season.

That being said, this is *not* the episode that jumped the shark. This show started jumping the shark a long time ago. However, I wonder if it's all tongue in cheek. A show that is removed from reality television, such that it is complete fiction and escapism. A backlash to all that is reality TV. The situations and the medicine are over the top. Thus, we can just focus on the emotions and the drama and the 60 minutes (gross of commercials) in which we can forget about survivors and lost people and out of work former child actors and the like.

Oh, and by the way, I hope that the explosion in the hospital finally took down the Kingdome that appears in the opening credits. :)
posted by acoutu at 4:12 PM on February 16, 2006

Some are sand, some are water. It works because it causes the vehicle to decelerate from 60 - 0 over a much longer distance than smacking into a rigid rail, as the buffer is squished out of the way, so G-forces on the car and people inside can be literally dozens of times less.

A water-filled container won't contain the energy of a bomb in quite the same way, but it's similar. Moving the water up out of the container dissipates a considerable amount of blast energy, and the amount of heat that water can absorb before boiling is useful for absorbing the heat of the blast. That assumes a good strong container for the water.

I wouldn't want to make it a primary method of bomb disposal, but it'd be a hell of a lot better than, say, holding it in your hands.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 4:16 PM on February 16, 2006

What I can't get over: will they be remodeling/repairing the hallway in this week's episode, or will it be magically new again?
posted by cior at 4:27 PM on February 16, 2006

She wasn't totally uninjured. She had a very photogenic-looking single cut on one side of her forehead.
posted by availablelight at 4:28 PM on February 16, 2006

the show's writers' blog is surprisingly engaging and detailed about this episode in particular, but also in general...
posted by judith at 4:44 PM on February 16, 2006

My husband, a resident, can't watch this show because the medical inaccuracies make his head explode (much like the unfortunate bomb squad guy). (Speaking for myself, as someone who's had two kids, my problem with that episode was -- I don't care how much of a hot-shit chief resident you are, you can't STOP yourself from giving birth!)
posted by mothershock at 5:00 PM on February 16, 2006

Mothershock, ask your husband about stopping yourself from giving birth. As it was explained to me by my doctor, the fight or flight response can take over if anxiety levels are too high. In ancient times, this allowed the woman to find a safe place to give birth. And, today, it is the reason that some labours stall, stop or go slowly. THey didn't quite pose it that way in Grey's, but I think that's essentially what was going on with Bailey.
posted by acoutu at 5:34 PM on February 16, 2006

lalo: I assumed it was to parallel the "shower scene" at the beginning of the previous episode, which was probably put in to retain superbowl viewers, which raises a whole host of assumptions on its own.
posted by heeeraldo at 5:56 PM on February 16, 2006

If it's a large enough bomb, the bomb squad won't bother with protective gear, because it impedes visibility, movement, and, with a large enough explosion, is powerless to protect.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:36 PM on February 16, 2006

Am I mistaken or are the "bomb proof box" suit, etc. used by US bomb disposal but not by some other nations? In particular the UK? Wondering if Astro Zombie's reasons are held more widely?
posted by A189Nut at 7:00 PM on February 16, 2006

metaculpa : Also, I recently learned that the front of the Caltrain engine is filled with sand too. Presumably to disappate the energy of a collision. Why would that work?

I don't know specifically about the Caltrain engines, but locomotives carry sand to spray onto the track to get better traction sometimes (like when the track is wet).
posted by Godbert at 7:33 PM on February 16, 2006

acoutu -- for my first birth, which happened in an excruciatingly painful epidural-free manner, I went from nothing into some kind of super-labor at lightning speed and my body started pushing the baby out. I had no control over it, and I couldn't have stopped it with all the chief resident, fight-or-flight skills in the world. It was really wild, and also pretty amazing to experience. (Though at the time, "amazing" was not one of the main words coming out of my mouth.)

And yeah, the shower scene. Nice parallel, but no way would she be hosed down by friends like that after being in a bomb blast.
posted by mothershock at 7:35 PM on February 16, 2006

There are several portable devices that can contain blasts. The Vangard CASCAD/Blast Guard tent system I link to above could have worked in this situation. It's very portable and has been field-tested to contain a couple of sticks of dynamite or a significant quantity of C4. How long did the guy have? Filling the tent with the foam doesn't take very long.
posted by bonehead at 8:13 PM on February 16, 2006

For the record, some of us TiVo. Please put spoilers after the jump. (Tonight I happened to watch it only 20 minutes delayed to skip commercials, so I don't have to kill you.)
posted by callmejay at 8:26 PM on February 16, 2006

The last two episodes had a couple staggering medical inaccuracies; they'd been better about it. However, this is the hook-the-Super-Bowl-viewers episode, so maybe things will get better, with fewer explosions.

I so saw that bomb squad guy coming. As soon as he didn't put it into a capsule, I knew he was going to eat it.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:31 PM on February 16, 2006

Of course, I wonder if the real problem here is that getting something as big as the bazooka shell to penetrate the guy's body probably means there is very little chance it's staying in his body. I suspect it would just go right through the guy (almost all assault rifle bullets have enough power for that, and they're not going to have the same punch as a bazooka shell, I suspect. But who knows, I'm no munitions expert).
posted by teece at 8:49 PM on February 16, 2006

I suspect it would just go right through the guy

Maybe, maybe not. Black Hawk Down has an absolutely chilling true-life segment where an unfortunate Army Ranger is speared by a rocket-propelled grenade that then fails to detonate. His buddies later have to disable the device that is lodged in his dead body, so they can get his body out of the Humvee.
posted by frogan at 9:05 PM on February 16, 2006

Shonda Rhimes worked with actual bomb squad officers in writing the episodes, for whatever that's worth.

I can see the point of his carrying the bomb out of the OR the way he did. Afterall, there were civilians in the room. Once the bomb was removed from the body, stopping to move the bomb into a container would have subjected the civilians to more danger than was necessary. It seems plausible that it was the right call to carry the bomb out of the OR. The best option from a short list of bad options.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:14 AM on February 17, 2006

Mothershock, I'm not saying the flight-or-fight response happens to everyone. And I don't think Bailey had conscious control of her delivery -- I think it was the result of a high level of anxiety that happened to coincide with her statements about not having this baby till tomorrow. FWIW, according to my doctor, I had a similar response during my son's birth, such that my body slowed down and stalled the delivery. It wasn't that I was "anxious", just that my body didn't think it was safe to proceed, given certain things going on with my medical care.
posted by acoutu at 9:49 PM on February 18, 2006