Man With Green Blood Lives in Canada

A man in a Vancouver hospital was found to have green blood, drawing comparisons to Mr. Spock.

CBC News reported that Dr. Alana Flexman and her colleagues made the discovery while preparing the man for surgery. The patient had been taking a migraine medication, sumatriptan, in higher-than-recommended doses, which may have caused his sulfhemoglobin levels to rise.

"[A] drug donates a sulphur group that binds to the hemoglobin molecule and prevents it from binding to oxygen," explained Flexman. "And that gives it the green colour." Norman human hemoglobin gives blood its copper-red appearance.

The man was suffering from a degenerative muscular condition and came through the surgery well despite the shock when his arterial line was put in. "During insertion, we normally see arterial blood come out. That's how we know we're in the right place. And normally that blood is bright red, as you would expect in an artery," Flexman said. "But in his case, the blood kept coming back as dark green."

Green blood, as the article noted, is often associated with Mr. Spock, who inherited Vulcan blood from his father based on copper, not iron.

The full article is here.

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