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British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

bbc.com

141–150 of 174 posts

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard... you just throw some ice packs in the groin and armpits. You won't get them fully into the TTM range in a 20 minute transport, but you can start the process.

That is extremely ineffective. What you might want to do is to cool the brain through cooling the outside of the head as well as through the nasal cavity. Even if you chug a giant slurpee the largest effect on the brain temperature will be the cooling of the nasal cavity on it's way down.

Packing with ice packs is a standard component of TTM, generally in conjunction with other therapies (chilled IV fluids, etc). It's also the easiest step to take in a prehospital setting, which is why we do (this is a thing I've done with maybe a dozen patients over the past few years). I'm not just making this stuff up, it's based on actual treatment protocols and algorithms.

We're talking about a naked, sedated patient (so they're already losing a lot of heat due to simple convection, and there's no heat being generated by skeletal muscle movements). The body's metabolism has slowed significantly, and it's producing anywhere near the normal level of "baseline" heat.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#142
post #138

Correction: his complications happened Because he was at the hospital. People don't realize this. They use these cases as examples why home births are dangerous, yet ignore the fact that the hospital environment and interventions are the cause of most complications.

What you are saying shows terrible and dangerous ignorance. I really hope you are not a vaccine denier as well. At max you could say his complications were RECOGNIZED as such because he was at the hospital. Otherwise, by laymen, they might have gone undetected.

PS. I am a physician.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#143
post #96

As someone who was once an NREMT-B in the US, we were taught that someone isn't dead, until they're cold dead. I haven't read the article yet, but I assume they kept her warm.

Exactly the opposite. You want to keep someone cold until their brain has had a chance to recover.

You're right. I corrected myself with a comment because I cannot edit my original post.

That will teach me to make comments before the caffeine has kicked in.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#144
post #99
post #96

As someone who was once an NREMT-B in the US, we were taught that someone isn't dead, until they're cold dead. I haven't read the article yet, but I assume they kept her warm.

Not sure about that. People whose heart and lungs have stopped may survive longer if they're cold. At least that's what I heard relating to a case of a boy who was revived after spending a long time under the ice of a frozen lake/river.

You're absolutely right and I corrected myself with a comment. I don't know why but I can't delete my original comment nor can I edit it.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the cold won't distribute at all ?

It will but much more slowly. Think of cooling the blood as using the surface area of the arteries and veins as a heat sink to cool the body. Without that blood moving your next best heat sink is the skin so start piling on the ice.

So I guess ice and cardiac massaging are synergic.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#146
post #64

Some notes: - The headline is clickbait/false really. The six-hour cardiac arrest is pretty much made up/guessed. In fact, they don't know how long she was in cardiac arrest. The article actually goes on to state "how long her heart stopped for is not clear", so it's a bit odd to say she had a six-hour cardiac arrest. - The six hours timeframe actually refers to the fact that a defibrillator was used 6 hours after th…

Yep agreed they're going for sensationalism. I was in cardiac arrest for 191 minutes before they got me onto the ECMO machine which was standing in for my heart and lungs. Those times though are pretty accurate because my husband was in contact with friends and emergency services so they have a lot of data about it.

Username checks out (also congratulations on making it!)

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#147
post #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…

Just out of curiosity - would one (say like a soldier) be able to effectively 'pre-emptively' wear a device in a backpack which has a permanent-ish lead to the circulatory system which does multiple things:

Provides a constant flow of oxygenated blood which allows for higher endurance, longer "holding of breath", and in the case of severe injury, oxygenated blood circulation to prevent death (unless there is catastrophic blood loss which moots the machine's ability)....

Recall all the famous designs of Cyborgs [and The Borg] with the tubes running into their face/head/nose - the tubes could be pumping externally oxygenated blood to the vitals which would suffer most in catastrophic physical unplanned destruction events.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is extremely ineffective. What you might want to do is to cool the brain through cooling the outside of the head as well as through the nasal cavity. Even if you chug a giant slurpee the largest effect on the brain temperature will be the cooling of the nasal cavity on it's way down.

Packing with ice packs is a standard component of TTM, generally in conjunction with other therapies (chilled IV fluids, etc). It's also the easiest step to take in a prehospital setting, which is why we do (this is a thing I've done with maybe a dozen patients over the past few years). I'm not just making this stuff up, it's based on actual treatment protocols and algorithms. We're talking about a naked, sedated pat…

Do you have any links to data showing effects on brain temperature from that treatment?

Afaik interest has been low in carrying around enough ice pack capacity to make this viable, and with lacking data for it even working, whereas head-cooling packs with circulating liquid through a cooler takes little space, cools way more efficiently and required no other maintenance after insertion into the patient in the ambulance (and is moved with the patient while continously working).

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#149
post #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…

Just out of curiosity - would one (say like a soldier) be able to effectively 'pre-emptively' wear a device in a backpack which has a permanent-ish lead to the circulatory system which does multiple things: Provides a constant flow of oxygenated blood which allows for higher endurance, longer "holding of breath", and in the case of severe injury, oxygenated blood circulation to prevent death (unless there is catastro…

Where would the oxygenated blood come from? How much would the soldier have to carry? How do you protect this mechanism so that it's not also damaged in whatever unplanned destruction event broke the soldier?

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#150
post #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…

Just out of curiosity - would one (say like a soldier) be able to effectively 'pre-emptively' wear a device in a backpack which has a permanent-ish lead to the circulatory system which does multiple things: Provides a constant flow of oxygenated blood which allows for higher endurance, longer "holding of breath", and in the case of severe injury, oxygenated blood circulation to prevent death (unless there is catastro…

Dick Cheney has (had?) no heart beat: https://www.livescience.com/33035-is-it-true-that-dick-chene...

In his case, the lungs are still working, but there's no scientific reason we don't have cyborg lungs yet.

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