Friday, May 23, 2008

Grand Mal Seizure on YouTube

Courageous couple, these two.

In 2003 Canadian medical marijuana advocate Christine Lowe, who suffers from epilepsy, wanted to see what happened when she had a tonic-clonic ("grand mal" is actually considered the old name) seizure. Her husband Russell Barth obliged. In 2007 they posted the video on YouTube.

"Why we posted this," via the Guardian.

[The] piece of footage was shot with the assistance of our friend David, in January 2003, at the repeated insistence of my wife Christine. She wanted to know what happened to her body while she was seizing, and we were under standing orders to catch any footage possible... Upon viewing this footage a few days later, she was shocked and astonished, as one could well imagine.

[...]

Since posting this footage, we have had over 254,000 views (23 times more hits than the next-most-viewed clip), and have received dozens of emails from people asking for advice in reducing seizures, and hundreds of positive comments about our bravery and compassion.

This footage has been used in medical schools and presentations around the world, and a prison in New Mexico has even used it to help new guards recognize real seizures. Another man in Fort Worth, Texas emailed us to say that our video helped him save another person who had a seizure while at his place of work.




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4 comments:

Bpaul said...

Brave folks posting that.

I had an uncle (R.I.P) who had epilepsy, so I saw this scene many times as a small child. Except the man was 6'5" tall and approximately 300 lbs. Very difficult to manage.

Intense.

Anonymous said...

I saw Christine today, she is a friend and neighbour. She's doing okay today, and served me some great lentil soup! But it is a struggle knowing that your friend disappears into this dark and unknown place for what seems like an eternity. Thank you very much for posting this.

LT said...

Well thank you very much for coming here and telling us that. What great news. I hope she continues to do well. Come on over anytime.

And wow, bpaul, that must have been intense. I worked in a variety of group homes for the developmentally disabled adults for almost a decade, and epilepsy was very common. Can be a frightening thing. Really feel especially for non-verbal people who you just can't talk to about it afterwards.

Anonymous said...

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