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British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

bbc.com

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Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#41

Post by lsaferite »

Jare wrote: post #7
stuartbman wrote: post #4

ECMO 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.

ECMO saved my daughter when she was born. She wasn't breathing due to Severe Meconium Aspiration Syndrome. After they worked on her for 4 hours they gave up and medivaced her to a nearby hospital that happened to have 2 experts in ECMO in their pediatric NICU. She was on ECMO for ~10 days (fuzzy memory). The ordeal was heartbreaking, but the result was amazing. That was almost 7 years ago and she's a healthy and happy little girl now. ECMO is amazing.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#42

Post by dmos62 »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #28
Tepix wrote: post #8

So, 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?

Lightning strikes don't wipe people's personalities. Also during epileptic seizures people's neurons fire in abnormal ways, but then return to normal afterwards. So I'd say that the RAM isn't critical; humans can boot from disk.

There are some documentations of incarnation and related phenomenon, ranging from anecdotal to quite convincing. So I'd say that the disk might not be critical; humans maybe can boot from network.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#43

Post by sho_hn »

tapland wrote: post #30
zozbot234 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not cool the patient before rushing them to hospital, if the technique is so widely applicable? It could easily be made a standard feature of emergency medical services.

Because it's hard. I helped out at a company among many that are trying to develop a system that would allow you to do this in ambulance and they started testing prototypes 10 years ago and have yet to progress from that stage.

Can you talk about the problems involved?

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#44

Post by workthrowaway »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #28
Tepix wrote: post #8

So, 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?

Lightning strikes don't wipe people's personalities. Also during epileptic seizures people's neurons fire in abnormal ways, but then return to normal afterwards. So I'd say that the RAM isn't critical; humans can boot from disk.

> humans can boot from disk

wow, this is so intriguing. i like this analogy even if i don't know how accurate it is.

we indeed have things that we forget (running out of space?) and things that take time to remember (disk latency).

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#45

Post by MarkMc »

Does this suggest that humans can be put into 'hibernation' to extend their lifespan? (Edit: I mean would be possible in future if we had a better understanding of the process?)

If I was rich enough I'd host a competition to extend the life of rats: Each year, whoever could demonstrate a technique to reliably extend the lifespan of a rat by at least 10% over the previous year's record would win a million dollars. I expect that the wining entry would involve putting the rats into controlled hypothermia.

Over the years the maximum lifespan will grow and we may even find that we can put rats into hibernation indefinitely. It would then be a question of whether we can apply the same techniques to humans.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#46

Post by jacquesm »

MarkMc wrote: post #45

Does this suggest that humans can be put into 'hibernation' to extend their lifespan? (Edit: I mean would be possible in future if we had a better understanding of the process?) If I was rich enough I'd host a competition to extend the life of rats: Each year, whoever could demonstrate a technique to reliably extend the lifespan of a rat by at least 10% over the previous year's record would win a million dollars. I e…

It mostly suggests that one person got very lucky and that there are likely important details that made the difference between 'dead' and 'mostly dead'.

Hypothermia due to a low environmental temperature has already been flagged as the way to come out of various otherwise fatal situations in more or less one piece. Besides that, even if no pulse can be detected that doesn't mean there isn't a pulse, and that can make all the difference just by itself.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#47

Post by nso »

divbyzer0 wrote: post #9
afthonos wrote: post #2

I 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_reflex

There was just a case in Norway with what looks like a mom drowning herself and her 3 children. The mom and the eldest expired, while the two youngest were brought up and are in critical condition but alive.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#48

Post by zozbot234 »

yardie wrote: post #35
zozbot234 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not cool the patient before rushing them to hospital, if the technique is so widely applicable? It could easily be made a standard feature of emergency medical services.

> easily Because creating a cooling system to use on a body with a central nervous system fighting to keep it warm is just like central HVAC.

> Because creating a cooling system to use on a body with a central nervous system fighting to keep it warm

And yet, something as simple as ice cold water seems to work fine for this. You can cool e.g. even a heatstroke victim pretty quickly, without worrying too much about internal thermoregulation.

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#49

Post by Thlom »

nso wrote: post #47
divbyzer0 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There was just a case in Norway with what looks like a mom drowning herself and her 3 children. The mom and the eldest expired, while the two youngest were brought up and are in critical condition but alive.

Unfortunately the 4 year old is also dead now. :-(

Re: British woman revived after six-hour cardiac arrest

#50

Post by kls »

divbyzer0 wrote: post #9
afthonos wrote: post #2

I 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_reflex

It is a true reflex I practice breath holds due to the fact that I spearfish, when I started I could hold my breath for about a minute out of water and less than 2 in water. Funny part is usually you second or third hold is the longest as your body due to the reflex tends to adapt to the higher CO2 levels in it, on the second and third breath hold. I can now hold my breath in water for over 5 minutes due to CO2 desensitization. The average person with training can hold for 8 minutes without loosing consciousness if they are calm and and resist the urge to breath. I have never tried to push past 5 as it leaves a decent window and 5 minutes is a really long time underwater. I can spend 2 minutes at 100 ft with a 5 minute breath hold. I am 45 and am in average to just slightly above average shape for a 45 year old.
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