British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
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Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
#2I read somewhere "you are not dead until you're warm and dead". Data point in favor.
Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
#3> In a race against time, doctors treating Mrs Schoeman turned to a specialised machine capable of removing blood, infusing it with oxygen and reintroducing it to the patient.
> Once her body temperature had reached 30C, they used a defibrillator to jump-start her heart some six hours after emergency services were contacted.
> Mrs Schoeman was released from hospital 12 days later, with only some lingering issues with the mobility and sensitivity of her hands due to the hypothermia.
> How long her heart stopped for is not clear - she may still have had some circulation, although not detectable.
Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
#4ECMO is an amazing technology that's often used in futile situations. I don't know who the ideal candidate is for it, but a young, fit, hypothermic cardiac arrest victim is pretty high up on the list
Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
#5Related:
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/child-survive...
There are a few such known examples, also some that looked good for a while but ended with a tragedy as much as a day later. I can see some parallels with the drowning case due to the hypothermia, the onset of which must have been relatively fast.
Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
#6Outside has a good narrative of hypothermia. https://www.outsideonline.com/2152131/freezing-death
Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
#7ECMO is an amazing technology that's often used in futile situations. I don't know who the ideal candidate is for it, but a young, fit, hypothermic cardiac arrest victim is pretty high up on the list
I don't know about ideal, but it saved my 6 day old son so yeah, "amazing" is totally warranted. Years later I sometimes take a look at some of the pictures we took (cameras would be forbidden in ICU soon after) and stare in awe.
Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
#8So, I still don't know if you are irreversibly dead if your brain stops all activity.
I.e. is the state of your brain preserved just by the connections of the neurons? Or is the "RAM" also critical?
Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
#9I read somewhere "you are not dead until you're warm and dead". Data point in favor.
Correct. Hypothermia and drowning (particulartly in cold water) the patient is not pronounced dead until the body has been warmed, this can be 12+ hours after the event.
Children do better.
The mammalian diving reflex prepares the body for long periods of immersion. Not to be relied upon.
Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest
#10So, I still don't know if you are irreversibly dead if your brain stops all activity. I.e. is the state of your brain preserved just by the connections of the neurons? Or is the "RAM" also critical?
Electrocuting the brain like in electroshock therapy most likely wipes any electrical activity. That seems to indicate that the brain is able to recover after such an event.