X-Message-Number: 13154
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 21:12:28 -0800 (PST)
From: Driven FromThePack <>
Subject: "Dead" woman revived

This is an excerpt from: 
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000127/sc/health_freeze_1.html

Norwegian Returns to Life After Severe Hypothermia
By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - A Norwegian woman whose body
temperature dropped to 56.7 F in a skiing accident was
brought back to life after she was thawed, doctors
said Friday.

The unidentified 29-year-old skier, who was clinically
dead, is the only known person to have survived after
such severe hypothermia.

``As far as we know it is the lowest body temperature
of anybody who has survived from being dead and cold
-- 13.7 degrees (56.7 F). There are no other reports
as low as that,'' Dr Mads Gilbert, of Tromso
University Hospital in Norway, told Reuters.

The previous lowest body temperature that anyone
survived was 57.92 F recorded in a child. Less than a
third of adults whose body temperature drops below
82.40 F recover.

``I would describe the case as a new confirmation that
we should never give up in cases were people are
cooled down. They should be warmed up before you
declare them dead,'' Gilbert said.

......


``She was clinically dead for a couple of hours,''
said Gilbert, one of dozens of doctors who has treated
her since the accident last May.

Writing in the Lancet medical journal, Gilbert and his
colleagues described how the woman fell while skiing
down a waterfall gully. She was wedged between rock
and overhanging ice for 40 minutes in a space
continually flooded with icy water.

.....

Although she was not breathing and had no circulation
by the time she reached the hospital, doctors used a
cardiopulmonary bypass to remove her blood, warm it
outside the body, and then return it to the body.

Gilbert said the icy water cooled her body to the
point where her heart had stopped. It also cooled her
brain enough so it could sustain a long period without
oxygen supply.

``The sequence of cooling in this particular case
probably is one of the key factors for this extremely
good result,'' he said.

The woman has no recollection of the accident.


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