Brain Wave: Teen Listens to iPod during Surgery

Brain Wave: Teen Listens to iPod during Surgery

If British tab The Sun is to be believed, 18-year-old Gavin Brooke stayed awake listening to an iPod as surgeons removed a brain tumor.

The teen had a tumor in a tricky place that surgeons didn’t want to damage, so the boy had to stay awake during surgery.

Brooke was given an anesthetic to numb the pain, but the head surgeon let him hook up his iPod Touch to give him something to do.

What was on the playlist?

The first tune Brook played on his iPod was “Apologize” by Timbaland Featuring One Republic, the rest were garage and R’n’B tracks that kept him occupied during the six-hour surgery. The iPod was plugged into the operating theater’s sound system and the volume was low enough so that Brooke could carry on conversation with the surgeons.

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The tumor was removed and Brooke has since recovered.

Via The Sun

About the author

nicole_martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

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Posted in iPod, iPod Touch |

  • larsitron

    Its a pretty routine thing to keep neurosurgical patients awake during their surgery so that the surgeon can determine if he’s venturing into territory that affects cognition, speech, hearing, etc.

    So, this seems totally reasonable and probably takes place more often than we’d think.

  • http://coreminimalist.blogspot.com Dann

    With music taste like that, it’s no wonder he had a brain tumor.

    I kid, I kid.

  • Chris

    Surely “Where is my mind” by the Pixies would have been more appropriate?

  • http://www.rosscarroll.com Rossco

    Another successful Lobotomy!