They’re not dead until they’re warm and dead.
I was looking for this. Didn't find it, so I posted it myself.
Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
121–130 of 148 posts
Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
#122I was rewatching The Abyss for the first time since 1989 and wondered just what is the process for reviving an asystole heart[^1]. [^1]: It was only relatively recently that I learned you can't shock an asystole heart. e.g. https://medicalsciences.stackexchange.com/questions/5874/can...
Ed Harris acted the crap out of that scene. And the whole dynamic between him and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in that film was awesome. I wish James Cameron was bringing that same level of characterization to Avatar :-/
Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
#123Something similar happened recently in Norway. A tourist was found severely cold in the mountains, in a storm where extracting him took hours. After a while hypothermia got to him, his heart stopped, and only 8 hours later they got it starting again, was technically dead for 20 hours. In this case, it looks to have gone well with the person afterwards. They say you're not dead until you're warm and dead. News article…
Wonder at which point we'll start adding PLB / airtags to clothing themselves. Decent jacket already cost way more than electronics. Satellite communications approaching cost of 0. If you venturing somewhere risky - kinda makes sense to have PLB built in.
Something like that exists with the RECCO system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RECCO
Not quite an arbitrary Personal Locator Beacon, but it can help rescuers home in from a distance. It's cheap because the tag is just an antenna and a diode.
Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
#124I'd be curious to read about 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 year follow-up. Party pooper warning. I'm afraid I don't have rose tinted glasses, due to personal experience with a family member with TBI (accident at age 16, 3 weeks in a coma). The aftereffects are profoundly destabilizing to his environment. I sometimes have quite a dark view of people's need to be a rescuer and celebrate the "alive!", when they don't have to deal wit…
I feel you, I also unfortunately have experiences with that. It has profoundly changed my view on living, especially how I want to be treated when someday I'm heavily sick. A family member in a coma takes a heavy toll on you, emotionally and financially. They are simultaneously there and not there. If they did not write down how they want to be treated you can never make a decision where you are sure what's right, or…
> Eventually, when all your savings are burned through, when you might need to sell your house, you really wonder if that's what they wanted and if all that was worth it.
I will never accept a country where things like this happen routinely as civilised.
Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
#125Incredible. I wonder if they can make progress on survivability of regular drowning.
Ultimately the reason cold water drownings are survivable is because the lower temperature decreases the speed of chemical reactions. If chemical reactions are happening (e.g.) 10x slower, then the amount of damage that occurs 10 minutes after cessation of breathing at normal body temperature now take 100 minutes.
Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
#126Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
#127I'd be curious to read about 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 year follow-up. Party pooper warning. I'm afraid I don't have rose tinted glasses, due to personal experience with a family member with TBI (accident at age 16, 3 weeks in a coma). The aftereffects are profoundly destabilizing to his environment. I sometimes have quite a dark view of people's need to be a rescuer and celebrate the "alive!", when they don't have to deal wit…
What is TBI?
Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
#128I'd be curious to read about 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 year follow-up. Party pooper warning. I'm afraid I don't have rose tinted glasses, due to personal experience with a family member with TBI (accident at age 16, 3 weeks in a coma). The aftereffects are profoundly destabilizing to his environment. I sometimes have quite a dark view of people's need to be a rescuer and celebrate the "alive!", when they don't have to deal wit…
What is TBI?
Traumatic brain injury.
Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
#129I'd be curious to read about 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 year follow-up. Party pooper warning. I'm afraid I don't have rose tinted glasses, due to personal experience with a family member with TBI (accident at age 16, 3 weeks in a coma). The aftereffects are profoundly destabilizing to his environment. I sometimes have quite a dark view of people's need to be a rescuer and celebrate the "alive!", when they don't have to deal wit…
What is TBI?
[deleted]
Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)
#130Do you give slow CPR in these cases?
Why should you? You still want to oxygenate the body as well as possible and distribute that oxygen throughout the body (primarily to the brain). The speed of the CPR is (I assume) rather related to the size of the heart (how quickly the heart refills from the veins) which is independent of temperature.