flatliner
English
Etymology
flatline + -er
Noun
flatliner (plural flatliners)
- (rare) A patient with no heartbeat.
- 1996, Bill Butterworth, Butterworth gets his life together, page 144:
- […] unless my heart stops, okay? Nada — unless I'm a flatliner."
- 1998, George Mckinney, Cross the Line
- In spite of his dramatic highs and the canyon lows, Kurt was a flatliner—a patient with no heartbeat.
- 2011, Laurence Street, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering Technology, page 125:
- Though occasionally a “flatliner” can be revived with a defib, it is most commonly used to change the uncoordinated contractions of the heart (fibrillation) into a normal sinus rhythm—that is, to defibrillate the heart.
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