The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean · Sam Kean, Bleav

The Mona Lisa of the Seine

October 29, 2024·18 min·1 clip

The CPR training phrase 'Annie, are you okay?' directly inspired Michael Jackson's hit song Smooth Criminal.

This episode uncovers the mysterious origin of the face used on CPR training mannequins, known as Rescue Annie. It traces her likeness back to a death mask made of an unidentified young woman pulled from Paris's Seine River in the 1800s, and follows how that mask was chosen by a Norwegian toymaker to solve a critical training problem for the life-saving technique developed by Dr. Peter Safar.

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