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Doctor Reacts to Musicians' Medical Emergencies

— A look at injuries and health problems from Pete Townshend to Celine Dion

MedpageToday

In this video, Mikhail Varshavski, DO, who goes by "Dr. Mike" on YouTube, watches clips of well-known music artists experiencing medical emergencies.

Following is a partial transcript of the video (note that errors are possible):

Varshavski: Oh, oh. I hope no one is getting trampled here. That's like one of the biggest things with a lot of these acts. People getting trampled is obviously a huge risk factor when there are big mobs. What happens is you essentially suffocate from all the pressure of the many people that are on top of you.

News Anchor 1: Authorities say 42 people were hurt...

Varshavski: Oh, wow.

News Anchor 1: ... when the partition separating the lawn from a secondary stage collapsed shortly after the show began August 5th, causing people to fall about 10 feet onto the concrete below.

Varshavski: Wow, that's so dangerous. I'm not going to lie. I kind of had something that happened to me where I was in Taekwondo and people were doing like this pileup thing that kids do as a joke. All these people got on top of me, and one of the heavy guys got on top, and it was so bad. Not only did I hear like my back crack, but also I couldn't take a breath in. It felt like when I was on the F-16 and I was experiencing 9.3 Gs, where I had to breathe in that very specific way. But obviously when you're 9 you're not trained to do that and you have all these people on top of you, so it's very, very dangerous.

Vivian Fabiola: Latin pop singer Enrique Iglesias was performing Saturday night in Tijuana, Mexico when this drone freak accident occurred during his performance.

Varshavski: Oh, my god. Why is he holding it? Don't hold the drone. There are sharp objects there. They always say stay away from the drone.

Crowd: [CHEERING]

Varshavski: He didn't expect for that to happen. That's terrible. You can get a really bad laceration and lose a finger like that. I love that they blow the confetti on him still. That's terrible.

Fabiola: The singer did run backstage for some quick medical attention, but then returned with a bloody hand and all.

Varshavski: Wow, that's a lot of blood lost from a hand. I hope he was able to see a hand surgeon quite quickly. Working on the hand is a tough job. You got to be careful because there is a lot of very small structures that you can damage. Then if it doesn't heal well, the person may not have good use of their hand.

Journalist 1: As members of the English rock band The Who, Moon and band mate Pete Townshend developed a reputation for their onstage antics.

Varshavski: Oh no.

Journalist 1: At the end of the show, Moon kicked over his drum kit as per usual, except this time it was loaded with explosives.

[EXPLOSION]

Varshavski: Oh, I did not expect for that to happen.

Journalist 1: ... and permanently affected Townshend's hearing.

Varshavski: Explosions, the human body, they can't coexist. Hearing damage from incredibly loud noise at that level, at that decibel level, you're going to have significant sensorineural hearing loss. You're going to have traumatic barotrauma to the ear as well from an explosion like that where the eardrum can rupture. It's important to note that it doesn't even have to be that loud. Here is a chart of how long you need to listen to certain decibels before it starts impacting your hearing and it's quite scary.

Journalist 2: Michael's downward spiral all started when he filmed a Pepsi commercial in 1984. He was on stage as the director called for pyrotechnics to go off all around him. They pushed a little too hard and Michael ended up in harm's way. The pyrotechnics went off and the flames were licking right at Michael's hair; it caught on fire.

Varshavski: Oh my god. That's not a part of the body that can resist burning. That sounds weird. Luckily they put it out quite quickly. But as far as skin damage, it would be pretty significant.

News Anchor 3: Jackson was dismissed from the hospital today against the advice of his doctor.

Steven Hoefflin, MD, (Jackson's physician): He has both second and third degree burns of the scalp. Fortunately, the third degree component is relatively small.

Journalist 3: Michael's injuries were horrendous. Doctors used balloons to stretch his skin and, honestly, he never fully recovered and that's when he got hooked on painkillers.

Varshavski: I'm surprised they didn't start doing some sort of graft right away, but I guess that's because he left.

Journalist 3: Keep in mind, this is 1984, a full quarter century before he died, and he became profoundly addicted to pain meds.

Varshavski: Addiction to pain medication is unfortunately common and worse over the last 20 years given the really negligent role that a lot of pharmaceutical companies played in talking about the pain medications, teaching doctors about pain medications, rewarding doctors for the overprescription of those medications, and then on top of it hospital systems essentially made pain another vital sign. Therefore, if you didn't get your patient to zero pain, it pressured doctors in order to control pain to a 0, which isn't always in the patient's best interest. Sometimes it might be healthier to get to a patient having a 1-2 level of pain than 0 because you have less side effects getting them to a 1 or 2.

Today Show Anchor: Celine has been uncharacteristically out of the spotlight, battling a terrifying disease.

Celine Dion: [CRYING]

Inside Edition Anchor: It's hard to watch.

Dion: [CRYING]

Varshavski: Yeah. She has a very, very rare condition called stiff person syndrome. It's a rare autoimmune neurologic condition where you get these incredibly painful spasms. I'm not talking about stiffness like you can't get out of bed because you're feeling tight. These are debilitating.

Inside Edition Anchor: She was at her doctor for a checkup when a seizure swept over her.

Dion: [LAUGHING]

Inside Edition Anchor: She tried to laugh it off when she felt the first signs in her fingers. Soon she was in the full throes of a medical emergency.

Medical Personnel 1: Brian, I need you right now. She is in a crisis. Lift her.

Medical Personnel 2: Yeah.

Medical Personnel 1: Ready? One, two, three. She might be in spasm.

Medical Personnel 3: Yeah.

Varshavski: During the spasm also, you can get pretty significant muscle damage, leading to the breakdown of muscle tissue and therefore enzymes into the blood, which can impact your kidneys. A lot of issues can arise out of this.

Inside Edition Anchor: She is given a sedative in her nasal passages.

Varshavski: A lot of the treatments that they use in situations like this are benzodiazepines to relax the muscles. What is thought to be the mechanism of why this happens or how this happens is this autoimmune condition basically prevents you from having one of the neurotransmitters known as GABA, which actually helps break muscular activation and cause muscular relaxation. You essentially don't have enough of that neurotransmitter. Therefore, when a muscle activates, it can go unmitigated and just continue spasming away.

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, is a board-certified family physician and social media influencer with more than 12 million subscribers.