Star Trek might be the most positive portrayal of humans in the future in science fiction. Poverty, war (between humans), even money have all been eliminated. Among all that wishful thinking, researchers at the Medical University of Vienna wondered what Gene Roddenberry thought the future holds for cardiac arrest. Their answer was surprisingly disappointing.

Science fiction is a natural inspiration for people trying to make science reality. Credit cards, solar energy, automatic doors, even skywriting were all invented in fiction before real engineers took up the task. So what futuristic solution did Star Trek create to eliminate the cardiac arrest?

Nothing.

After analyzing 526 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, the researchers found 96 cases of cardiac arrest, 90 percent of which were fatal. According to statistics from the American Heart Association, that’s more or less the same as today, where 92 percent of cardiac arrest cases are fatal outside of the hospital.

They did note, however, that the causes of cardiac arrest were different in the Star Trek future according to Live Science. The most likely cause was trauma, serious physical injuries, blasts from energy weapons or poisoning.

Today, the most common cause of cardiac arrest is a heart attack. A heart attack is the blocking of an artery that causes severe damage to the heart, cardiac arrest is a sudden electrical malfunction in the heart that causes it to stop beating or beat irregularly, forcing the victim to go unconscious and quickly die if not treated immediately.

Those causes differ dramatically, and that might be the whole point. A burst from an energy weapon may be far more entertaining for the audience than someone keeling over suddenly in engineering.

The researchers drew a different conclusion from their Star Trek study, saying, “this invites the conclusion that people in the future will be living much more healthily and will have better preventative medicine than we do now.”

The Star Trek study did highlight the most critical issue in cardiac arrest: time.

The researchers concluded that unrelated technology, like Star Trek‘s teleporter, allowed patients quicker access to medical care. Today, the critical difference between life and death is often how long it takes to reach the nearest hospital, or if anyone close by knows CPR.

The researchers wrote, “cardiac arrest remains a critical event in the 24th century… quick access to medical help and new prognostic tools, established by the 24th century will help treat people in cardiac arrest.”

In the end, the study may have been a disappointing in terms of true insight, but it still highlights the need for haste in these kinds of emergencies.

The full Star Trek study was published in the Resuscitation Journal and can be found here.

[Image via NBC Television]