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Can you safely heat people with microwaves? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

53 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Sometimes, when I'm really cold, it can take over an hour to warm me up, even with a heating blanket. The quickest solution, a hot shower, feels really inefficient with all the heat going down the drain.

That got me thinking about microwaves. They heat food (partly) from the inside, contrary to simple infrared radiation.

Could we safely do that with people?

I found a Reddit thread where a non-lethal weapon and people getting eye damage because they stayed too long in front of a radar dish.

Could some sort of device be made that would warm specific areas (say, a hand or a leg) without endangering sensitive areas like the eyes?

Would it actually warm someone up from the inside? Would it be possible to make it safe?

Would it present advantages in cases of hypothermia, compared to heated IV fluids?

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (19 children)

I once did three weeks of IT work in a forensic pathology lab.

Spoilered for disturbing details

They had a microwave - a regular microwave oven designed for use in the kitchen. They used it for degloving hands. That means they put the severed hand in the microwave and heated it until the fatty layer under the skin softened. That way the skin could be slid off mostly intact.

I absolutely would not do this to a living person. It doesn't seem healthy.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 week ago (10 children)

Welp, that's enough internet for today. Imma head out.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago (7 children)

I'm choosing not to open the spoiler tag because of this comment. Thanks for taking one for the team.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

Lucky you; spoiler tag was broken when I got to it. I have seen a thing I wish to unsee.

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