Question

Ed Rivers, a third-year medical student, was alone in the hospital emergency room one night. It was unusually quiet in the ER, so the residents were getting some much-needed sleep. A patient, Ms. B., was brought in showing signs of serious dehydration. Ed tried to give her water but she vomited. Feeling that he must try something else and not wanting to wake the residents, he administered 1 liter (L) of sterile distilled water intravenously (IV). The questions that follow are aimed at determining the consequences of Ed�s action. Assume for simplicity that red blood cells (RBC) contain only solutes to which the RBC membrane is impermeable. The osmolarity of the RBC, the concentration of solute particles, is 300 mOsm/L.