David Kelly suicide: Electrodes on chest 'unusual'

[Must_B_Free]

Heart experts today said it was 'unusual' for someone to wear electrode pads while walking following revelations that David Kelly had four of the special monitors on his chest when his body was found.

more ...

http://www.indiantelevision.com/end/y2k3/aug/2augge4.htm


OOPS - sorry mods please delete - I didn't realize this was 16 hours old.

[teryang]

1. OK, he's dead....

...now go dump the body.

[Enraged_Ape]

2. Guess these "heart experts" have never heard of a Holter monitor

But hey, good medical care is hard to find these days.

[SideshowScott]

3. Maby the Press should think its " Unusual" People Die who can hurt Bush

Or maby they do and they are just Chickenshit..I really think that the Bush/Rove/Cheney Crime machine has something on the members of the press..Or just plian threats to life and family beacuse they roll over for bush so much that its embarrasing to watch..And for people whos job it is to ivestagate facts they always seem to ingore the " Suicides" of people who had connection to bush or could hurt him..I really think its a message.. " Fuck with me and you die"

[supernova]

4. Interesting

wonder why he was wearing EKG electrodes? If he had a Holter monitor, it should still be in his house somewhere.

[tomp]

5. if the monitor was off so should the pads be.

they go together, as a unit. there is no reason to be wearing electrodes if you're not hooked up to something (unless you're momentarily between tests).

[Barrett808]

6. I participated in a few holter tests

While working for a local stress-test cardiology equipment company. We certainly removed the electrodes after we were done with a test.

Was Dr. Kelly known to have a heart condition that required home monitoring? Afaik, home monitoring is pretty rare.

[Pastiche423]

13. Home monitoring

is not rare when using a Holter monitor, in fact, that is the way it is done. The doctor attaches the pads, inserts the wires and monitor, then off the patient goes on his merry way for 24 hours.

It would not be odd for a patient to leave the pads on (if the 24 hour test had been completed), especially in Kelly's case. You want to pull those buggers off when you have a hairy chest?

But where the hell is the monitor? Why haven't they asked his cardiologist when he began the test? Once they do - mystery solved.

What is keeping my interest high is, why are the papers continuing to report on the pads, when the answer would be so easy to find? Are they sending out a message that something is awry in an oblique manner?

[tomp]

16. sorry, but it would be odd to leave them on.

no question the patient would remove them, hair or not. i've worked with holter's extensively. patients always take everything off as son as possible.

[Enraged_Ape]

22. The doctor's office instructs you not to remove the pads...

nor get them wet for the 24-hours of the test.

I am a physical therapist who works with cardiac patients. This I know.

And if you think that 24-hour monitoring is "rare", I question how extensively you have worked with Holter monitors.

[Emillereid]

23. Don't you think it's strange that he left the pads presumably knowing

he was going to take a walk, down lots of pain medication and kill himself? He knew he wasn't going to be needing the heart monitor later, even if it's standard practice to leave them on for later convenience. In fact, I find the fact that he had been monitoring his heart an indication that he had been thinking about living, not dying.

My gut instinct about this case tells me he was helped out of this world by people clever enough to make it look like a suicide.

[stickdog]

28. So, it was a good idea to go walking several miles in the rain then.

What makes you think:

1) this guy was using a Holter monitor

and

2) this guy decided to wear Holter monitor eletrodes to his suicide?

[Enraged_Ape]

29. Why do I think the guy was using a Holter monitor?

1) He'd had a history of heart problems before.

2) Because it's a perfectly logical reason for someone to have electrodes stuck to his/her chest outside of a medical clinic, regardless of whether they have wires or unit attached to them or not (you are not supposed to remove the electrodes because they will not make good electrical contact if you do, though the wires and unit can snap off to keep them from getting wet).

Do I think it's odd that a guy would leave the pads on, or that he would even undergo monitoring, if he were planning to kill himself? Well, yeah. But it's not IMPOSSIBLE or even highly improbable that he would; he may have had other things on his mind besides the four 2"-diameter flexible foam pads attached to his chest.

I think that what burns me up most is that there are a lot of people in this forum who have no fucking clue what they're talking about, and it's made even worse by the fact that they have next to no information about how this man's body was found or what he was doing the day or week that he died.

[tomp]

31. you should calm down

it's obvious to me, as something of an expert in holter monitoring, that you think you know more than you do.

[Enraged_Ape]

38. Whatever you say, tomp

What kind of results did you say you got on those patients with 24-hour monitors when they left the clinic with their pads off?

[hang a left]

37. I just can't help myself

from the moment the guy was reported missing, they were spinning how he was depressed and under extreme stress, (ie suicide). Before the body was found they were insinuating suicide and after the body was found before a coroner ever ruled the cause of death they were speculating suicide. So come on, live in the real world. A guy that's being thrown under the bus, that has extensive knowledge of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or lack there of, at the height of the wmd fiasco on both sides of the Atlantic, goes out for his daily walk (not in the rain, by the way)and ends up in a bunch of trees after slicing one wrist, and taking pain meds. OK it could happen?

[Enraged_Ape]

40. I didn't say I don't think he was murdered

He may very well have been, but I sincerely believe that the presence of electrodes on his chest is no more "proof" of murder than if he'd had a skull-and-crossbones tattoo.

[tomp]

30. you're not getting what i'm saying

i'm a nurse now in a cardiac setting (my lab is right next door to the holter lab), and in a previous incarnation i worked for 5 years exclusively with holter monitors. i've forgotten more about holters than you'll ever know. not to pull rank but my experience trumps yours.

that being said...under normal circumstances staff members do the removal of the monitor and the pads (it's always done together, unless the pads are immediately needed for some other type of monitoring. but in some cases, like when the 24 hr period starts on a fri the patient will be instructed to remove the monitor and pads themselves on sat. i've never heard of instructing the patient not to remove the pads in cases like this.

so far i haven't heard any good explantion for a person walking around with ecg electrodes in place.

[Enraged_Ape]

39. You and I agree on one thing, tomp

For the 24-hour period, a patient LEAVES HIS PADS ON. They may even disconnect the leads (for whatever reason--bath, shower, walking in the rain, you name it), but the pads stay on. All I've been trying to say this whole time is that to say that there is NO REASON for a man to be laying with Holter electrodes on his chest is crazy.

Please note that at no time have I indicated that I believe the guy committed suicide. He probably WAS murdered. But using these electrodes as proof of murder is a dog that won't hunt, for us or anyone else.

[Pastiche423]

41. As a patient

I always waited and let my cardiologist remove everything, even when it was way past the 24 hour testing period. But, I was told that I could remove them myself if they had become an irritant.

So, it is not true that patients always take everything off as soon as possible.

[carpetbagger]

9. I've seen it plenty of times. People leave 'em on.

They just forget to take them off. Sometimes they wait for them to come off in the shower. In this guy's case, he might have been undecided as to whether he'd be coming back, and putting the Holter back on. Or, he might have been so distraught that he wasn't thinking about things like personal appearence. Or, maybe he figured there was no good reason to take them off (BTW, if you've got a hairy chest, it's NOT a pleasent experience to remove them).

[MuseRider]

7. Seems to me that one would

wear the monitor and not just the pads if they were out for a walk. Many times that is when an arrhythmia will occur, during exercise. It should be easy to find out if he was being monitored.

[DS1]

8. Maybe he started putting the things on

as a habit before a walk, and then realized there wasn't much point dragging the monitor along with him, and in fact, there wasn't even much point taking the things off...

[sal]

10. Police officials found that the knife lodged in his back

to be quite peculiar, and not common in most suicide cases.

[Rex]

12. They found more...

"It's uncommon to find a cattle prod, 9 slugs in the chest, a bull whip, 7 suicide notes written in crayon, and a llama next to the body", said police. "But it's still a suicide, so there."

[Cassandra]

14. LOL!

Thanks

[Code_Name_D]

25. I though he commited a texas suiside.

You know, the kind that uses majic bullets? Or another common varity of suiside found in Texas and Florida. Pistole blast in the back of the head, you know like how the Chinese prisners commit suiside.

[Whoa_Nelly]

11. Holter monitor info

A Holter monitor is portable, and worn for at least 24 hours to gather EKG info. The electrode pads are worn for an extended time, and it's not that unusual for Kelly to still have had those on had he been being monitored and decided to remove the monitor attachements with the idea he would reconnect to the monitor later on. People have to sometimes interrupt the testing for various and/or personal reasons, such as taking a shower, interrupting the gathering of data as some data is collected only during specific times such as during sleep.

Anyway, here's a link that tells about the Holter monitor:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003877.htm

[short bus president]

18. why all this talk about Holter monitors?

Has anyone seen any evidence that Dr. Kelly had any reason to be wearing one? And would anyone even question the pads on his chest if they knew he was being so monitored? I think a lot of people are jumping to completely unwarranted conclusions about the pads - rationalizing, if you will. It's the complete opposite of most conspiracy theories, but based on wild speculation nonetheless.

[sam sarrha]

26. they itch! they irritate the the skin, people remove them right away.

[tomp]

32. correct. nt

[screembloodymurder]

27. If your planning to kill yourself

why ask for a Holter monitor? Concern about his heart seems to indicate suicide was NOT planned.

[tomp]

33. it is not standard practice to remove a holter for any reason.

the whole point is to make a continuous recording. people do not shower while wearing one and they are not instructed to remove them temporarily. in virtually every case they run for 24 hrs only. if longer monitoring is required an external loop monitor is used for up to a month or more, or a recording device is implanted like a pacemaker is implanted. with loop monitors the patient may remove them for showers and such. in that case new pads are used to replace the old ones.

[BeHereNow]

15. Consider this!

Why would a suicidal man care about the condition
of his heart?
THAT is the real question.
What? Was he thinking....
"I am going to kill myself, so I'd better check my heart!"
I really doubt it.
BHN

[orangecoloredapple]

19. That's about as clear as it gets.

Worrying about your heart at the same time that you are committing suicide is a bit odd.
So he was using a Holter monitor (that we don't even know if he was), left the pads on for convenience, then offed himself. That's not so clear. We'll never know, though.

[Mokito]

17. Just a theory

If I'm not mistaking, a Holter-monitor measures vital bodyfunctions such as the heartbeat. Am I correct?
Now what if he was actually wearing one of these at the time of his walk. Where is it now?

Is it possible that, if he actually was murdered, the killers took it off him, because they knew it might actually record evidence that could indicate murder, like a rising heartbeat or such? Just a thought.

Why leave the pads on then? Who knows...hasty?

[Eloriel]

20. NO, Mods! Please don't delete - I'd like to bookmark it.

Eloriel

[Junkdrawer]

21. Here's my little theory,,,

Suppose someone wanted to frighten him. They call him away from home with a "if you don't come, we'll get your family" type call. They start to grill him when he drops over with a coronary. A medic comes, but is not successful. So they slash his wrists and CPR the blood out to make it look like a suicide. Why slashed wrists? Well, if you shoot a dead body, the wound would show the heart stopped beating before you shot him. Same with poison or pills. Come to think of it, there are few "suicide" scenarios that would work with a dead body.

Why did they leave the pads? Well, suppose all the revival stuff created quite a site with footprints everywhere. They redress him and move the body before they fake the suicide - forgetting to remove the pads. And remember this was all emergency planning - they didn't intend to off him at that time.

And for you coincidence theorists, I'm not saying this had to happen, but that perhaps it (or something like it) should be ruled out in a thorough investigation.

[aquart]

24. I've been wondering about crime scene footprints.

So far we've heard nothing about the scene except it was a mile away.

If you think of it, they've told us damn all.

[tomp]

34. interesting hypothesis. best i've heard so far. nt

[MGKrebs]

35. Interesting statement from the family.

"Events over recent weeks have made David's life intolerable, and all of those involved should reflect long and hard on this fact," his family said in a statement police read to reporters.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92378,00.html

Kind of a curious way of putting it, I thought.

[MGKrebs]

36. A lot of assumptiont that he had a heart condition...

but nobody really says how they know it.


"Mr Hoon could be the sacrificial victim, forced to resign when details emerge of how Dr Kelly's name became public, against his stated wishes. Whether the MoD knew he was suffering from a heart condition has yet to be established. "

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3516102&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

And...

"Dr David Kelly was a sick man. The 59-year-old scientist was suffering from a "significant degree" of coronary heart disease when he set off for his fateful walk in the Oxfordshire countryside on 17 July."

"When he reached the place of his chosen end, in a "deliberate act of self-harm" he methodically removed his wristwatch and spectacles before slashing his left wrist."


http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=429817