Counter-Strike Saves 3 Local Kids In Phillipines

While many politicians and ‘experts’ will make a conclusion that violent video games promote violence (Ironically, one following such ‘logic’ isn’t pointing fingers towards Hollywood Action Movies), at the very same time, whatever one may think about action/ violent games, it saved the lives of 3 children who were playing with grenades unaware of what it was if it wasn’t for another kid who had seen the game of Counter-Strike.

Three children were found playing with live grenades in Barangay Looc, Manduae City located in the Phillipines. Police immediately rushed to recover and defuse those grenades that were found in a vacant lot of a scrap yard.

Credits to a 12-year-old Jose Darwin Garciano who warned his friends not to play with it as the grenades can explode and kill them, just like how it happens in Counter-Strike. To those who don’t know, Counter-Strike is a tactical first person which started as a mod for Half Life where player either play as terrorist or counter-terrorist team with a goal of eliminating eachother.

The grenades were found by Elmer Rigodo when he heard a crack coming from a biscuit container after they were goofing off with their cartwheel. What’s even more disturbing was that one of the kids, Salili, tried to polish the bronze coloured grenade by rubbing it on the oil. That’s when Garciano saw the grenades and immediately warned his friends.

The hero of the 3 kids said in Filipino,”We got curious as it’s our first time to see what an explosive looks like!” and also said that he knew it would explode as he has seen it in a counter strike game.

Once the kids told to one of the residents, he informed the police who have sent a special weapons and tactics team who then placed a bomb blanket over the grenades. One of the bomb technicians said the children were lucky that the grenades did not explode while they were playing with it.

Source: Cebu Daily News

By Verena Dobnik
updated 4/7/2004 4:04:30 PM ET

NEW YORK — All those years on the couch playing Nintendo and PlayStation appear to be paying off for surgeons. Researchers found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made about 37 percent fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the task 27 percent faster than their counterparts who did not play video games.

"I use the same hand-eye coordination to play video games as I use for surgery," said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, 49, who demonstrated the results of his study Tuesday at Beth Israel Medical Center.

Laparoscopic surgery — using a tiny camera and instruments controlled by joysticks outside the body — is performed on just about any part of the body, from an appendix to the colon and gall bladder.

The minimally intrusive surgery involves making tiny keyhole incisions, inserting a mini-video camera that sends images to an external video screen, with the surgical tools remote-controlled by the surgeon watching the screen. Surgeons can now practice their techniques through video simulations.

Rosser said the skill needed for laparoscopic surgery is "like tying your shoelaces with 3-foot-long chopsticks."

"Yes, here we go!" said Rosser, sitting in front of a Super Monkey Ball game, which shoots a ball into a confined goal. "This is a nice, wholesome game. No blood and guts. But I need the same kind of skill to go into a body and sew two pieces of intestine together."

The study on whether good video game skills translate into surgical prowess was done by researchers with Beth Israel and the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University. It was based on testing 33 fellow doctors — 12 attending physicians and 21 medical school residents who participated from May to August 2003.
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Each doctor completed three video game tasks that tested such factors as motor skills, reaction time and hand-eye coordination.

The study "landmarks the arrival of Generation X into medicine," said the study's co-author, Dr. Paul J. Lynch, a Beth Israel anesthesiologist who has studied the effects of video games for years.

Kurt Squire, a University of Wisconsin researcher of video game effects on learning, said that "with a video game, you can definitely develop timing and a sense of touch, as well as a very intuitive feel for manipulating devices."

Squire, who was not involved in Rosser's project, said applying such games to surgery training "could play a key role in preparing medical health professionals."

Beth Israel is now experimenting with applying the findings.

Rosser has developed a course called Top Gun, in which surgical trainees warm up their coordination, agility and accuracy with a video game before entering the operating room.

"It's like a good football player," Rosser said, "you have to warm up first."

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.