Two brothers are both surgeons. They are skiing in the Alps one snowy day. They are both overly cautious and carry the same basic tools of their trade whenever they ski. Coincidentally, both brothers acquire the same injury. One performed the required procedure in treating the injury and got safely down the mountain while the other died, however both acquired the same injury and carried the same tools. Why was one able to stabilize his injury and make it down the mountain, yet the other could not?
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3$\begingroup$ I don't want to be too harsh here, but this is not constrained enough to have a single solution. Other than both being surgeons, there is nothing in this that tells us about any other similarities or differences between the brothers. One of them could be left handed, or have no left arm, or have long sight and not be carrying the glasses required for surgical work, etc. And just because they are both surgeons doesn't mean that they have the same skills or training to deal with their injuries. $\endgroup$– fljxJun 21, 2022 at 15:07
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$\begingroup$ I like these kinds of puzzles in real life. Usually, there's some ability to ask questions, maybe with a restriction that we can only ask questions that give y/n answers. These work in person. SE is not well-suited to this kind of question though because there are so many possibilities. However, perhaps there's a way to make this work? I don't know what it is, but I think it's overly harsh to close it straight off. $\endgroup$– Dr XorileJun 22, 2022 at 6:00
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$\begingroup$ @DrXorile it was closed a while after fljx's comment noting possible problems. At that point the opposite of "close off-topic Q" is "leave off-topic Q open to get a bunch of speculative answers", something which we wanted to avoid with that close reason. $\endgroup$– bobbleJun 22, 2022 at 14:09
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$\begingroup$ It makes sense. $\endgroup$– Dr XorileJun 23, 2022 at 16:42
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3 Answers
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The most immediate difference I can think of:
One brother is left-handed, and the other right-handed, and the injury they sustained involves disabling one of their arms/hands?
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This question has a lot of possible answers. Here's one off the top of my head:
The injury made them both lose a lot of blood, and they each required a blood transfusion. With nobody else around, one of the brothers had to draw blood from the other, and hence only the one that got the transfusion lived, while the other died.
Or how about this:
You never said the brothers were skiing TOGETHER in the Alps. One brother was only 50 m from base camp and was able to limp back, while the other was on the peak and couldn't make it.
answered Jun 21, 2022 at 12:02
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@Te55eract it is mentioned in your question that
One performed the required procedure in treating the injury and got safely down the mountain while the other died, so only one brother performed the procedure in treating the injury and that's why he was able to stabilize his injury and make it down the mountain while the other could not
