Please let Ford know their new commercial depicting surgery is unacceptable!
I wrote the following e-mail to the VP of Ford’s Marketing firm. I received no answer. I did find that if individuals call 1-800-392-3673 and select option 5 and then stay on the line for a live person; and then say “I want this call documented,” that it must then be written up and passed along to someone.
Again, here is what I wrote, which may give you some talking points.
Ford,
I am writing to inform you that your current commercial for the Sync voice-activated command system in which a patient in surgery is featured is insensitive, egregious, absurd, and not fit for airing. The entire scenario of surgery is flawed. I understand the intent of the commercial: there is no need for an anesthesia provider (not that the anesthesia could possibly ever be delivered with no mask or IV) because all the surgeon has to do is say “Anesthesia on.” Then the surgeon makes a cut, and the patient very calmly (one is not calm when being sliced into!) says, “I feel that.” The surgeon asks “Do you feel this?” and presumably makes another cut, and then the patient says, a little more insistently, “Anesthesia on!” You may well not know of a very real and very devastating and terrorizing phenomenon called “anesthesia awareness.” I invite you to visit my website, www.anesthesiaawareness.com, and learn about what happens when the anesthesia doesn’t come on. Having been left fully conscious and totally paralyzed for 5-1/2 hours while my eye was removed, and talking with well over 4,000 other victims of anesthesia awareness, I must demand that this ad be removed from the airwaves immediately. I hope you will read this soon (as I have been assured you will) and will contact me at 703-437-7327 before the day is out! If I do not hear from someone from Ford with the authority to pull this insensitive commercial immediately, I will be placing something similar to this e-mail on my website so that Ford can hear from many real surgical nightmare victims. I suspect that the ASA, the AHA, JCAHO, the AANA, the College of Surgeons, and dozens of other professional associations will not find your ad acceptable either.
An extremely upset viewer and patient advocate,
Carol Weihrer