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Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

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131–140 of 148 posts

Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

#131

Something 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…

I wonder if such cases are a gift from our Neanderthal forebears, from the few % of Neanderthal DNA that still lingers in most humans alive today. They spent hundreds of thousands of years amidst ice age glaciers, what are the odds they developed the ability to hibernate? It would be a good explanation on how H. Sapiens Sapiens took over later. They couldn't defend their shelters while in torpor.

Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

#132
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be willing to share more details, instead of this rather vague claim? I've had three at least 2 hour long operations last year. I kind of wondered if I'd notice any aftereffects, but apparently didn't. Even waking up was pretty uneventful, consciousness just coming back like a light bulb being turned on again. So either I am an exception, or your "everyone I know" needs qualification. In any case, I'd be ve…

For me and others(in my circle with operations, 5) the waking up part is multiple hours of a drugged feeling, like you really aren't on the same planet anymore. Currently have a family member in hospital and 4 days later they are still dealing with the effects. I assume this is probably a regional/country issue, australian public hospitals are pretty sub-standard.

I mean, maybe what do you think about 4 weeks later? If I'm being put under I think more than 4 days is reasonable to expect my mind to recover. If I have a terrible flu I could be in a fog for as few.

However this is not to diminish your report specifically, just that in terms of what I care about long-term it is the >2 weeks effects

Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

#133
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems below about ~80F you lose consciousness. This kid was nearly half that. Moreover, there have been other similar cases: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32482520/

> It seems below about ~80F you lose consciousness. Interestingly, the case report notes that "classic cardiac electrical activity" started once the patient reached 82°F.

FWIW, I got the 80F figure from the table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothermia#Classification

Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

#134

Something 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…

> This happened after he received CPR for several hours at a cabin on the Hardangervidda plateau before rescue arrived.

This means although his heart wasn’t technically beating, he did have blood being circulated via cpr.

When I read the title I assumed he was alone before rescuing.

Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

#135
post #59

Something 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…

"They say you're not dead until you're warm and dead." Actual mountain rescuer slogan/wisdom.

Same thing I taught my paramedic and EMT students.

Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

#137
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain?

Not op, but imagine doing cpr to someone for more than an hour (btw this means multiple people taking turns because cpr is exhausting) and at some point there is a sign of feeble heart contractile activity (and hence life) It must have been a very emotional moment for the rescuers and parents if present. Edit: corrected typo

An hour of cpr in an ALS scenario almost certainly involves a Lucas device:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LUCAS_device

… which are commonly carried in ambulances.

Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

#138
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They say you're not dead until you're warm and dead." Actual mountain rescuer slogan/wisdom.

Same thing I taught my paramedic and EMT students.

I read it two days ago in the textbook for the EMS course that I am working through right now.

Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Multipurpose too for the washer/dryer settings

Who washes their hiking gear?

Re: Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

#140

I'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…

The paper has the warning phrased differently. "He can at least be an organ donor", basically, in the summary. Your comment and the thread it started helps me a little with dealing with a close person's father's dementia.

I really recommend the book "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande. It helped me process the drawn out and unpleasant death of my grandfather and look at end of life care in a different light. There's an important difference between extending life and providing quality of life that a lot of patients and doctors both misunderstand.

The book is written from the author's own experience as a doctor but also includes his experience with his own father's death from cancer.

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