Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.
"He doesn't make too many mistakes. He seems to understand when patients are about to die," said Dr. David Dosa in an interview. He describes the phenomenon in a poignant essay in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
=======================
Apparrently Oscar hangs around patients who will die soon. It seems odd to me that they're missing the obvious answer: Oscar is somehow killing these people.
Have all those years of Buffy taught us nothing?
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
The fact these doctors go to medical school for 6 years and then have 3 years of residency astounds me. That they could miss the obvious truth behind all this is ridiculous.
Forget Buffy, if these doctors had simply watched a few episodes of The X Files the answer would be obvious.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Cats guide souls on the Paths of the Dead leading to the Afterlife. What would be the point of being granted nine lives if cats didn't use the knowlege they gain through eight deaths?
posted
It's a little known fact that while usually being with a pet extends one's life, one in a thousand pets actually shorten lives considerably.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
But, I mean, once the baby is done with the breath, wouldn't it be okay for the cat to have it?
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I wondered whether if the cat could predict accidental deaths as well. Would the hospital receptionist freak out if the cat curled up in their lap?
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Cats steal the breath of babies in their sleep.
It's actually little gnomes, and unbeknownst to you your cat is actually protecting your life every night.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
What do people make of the warm blanket theory? It seems like that would have been pretty obvious if that were the explanation.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's possible that there's something like that at work, although that idea doesn't account for the example given of the cat thinking the patient wasn't ready to die with the staff did. I have no idea how common an occurance that is. It'd be really interesting to read a careful study of this cat's behavior, in which variables like that were taken into account.
Personally, I think that he is Oscar, Devourer of Souls.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
