It was another day at work when doctors admitted a 65-year-old man after a fall resulted in a dislocated right hip. Doctors used a handheld Doppler ultrasound device to assess the man’s pulse in his feet, a standard procedure. But much to everyone’s surprise, the device’s speakers played music accompanying the man’s regular pulse. What is this sorcery?
Turns out, the man with the most melodic pulse in the world had previously undergone surgery to replace both hips with prosthetics, which the authors of a new report published in The New England Journal of Medicine believe picked up radio waves, “although other equipment in the room (such as the hospital bed) could have received the signal.”
Doctors repeated the procedure with other Doppler devices, and they could still hear the music. In a video accompanying the report, the song “Gracias Por Tu Amor” by Banda El Recodo De Cruz Lizárraga can be heard.
Although no harm came out of it, medical staff reported the incident to the facility’s engineering department for further investigation but not faulty equipment was reported.
Eight months after the bizarre radio interference, the patient is doing well. He hasn’t experienced any other falls and can now boast that his heart literally beats to the drum of life.