X-Message-Number: 2630
Subject: CRYONICS: HYPOTHERMIC CHILD
From:  (Ben Best)
Date: 	Thu, 3 Mar 1994 23:03:00 -0500


   A 2 year-old girl named Karlee Kasolofski, of Rouleau, Saskatchewan
(Canada) was nearly frozen to death a week ago. She was accidently left
outside her home at 2:30 am in the early morning of Wednesday,
February 23 and not discovered until 8 am in the morning, dressed only
in a jacket, boots and a nightgown. Air temperature was -22 degrees
Celcius, with a windchill factor equivalent to 40 degrees below zero.

   When Karlee was discovered, she had no pulse or heartbeat, and was
not breathing. No one knows how long she had gone without breathing. Her
legs appear to have been frozen solid. Her core body temperature had
dropped to 14 degrees Celcius, yet she was revived.

    14 degrees Celcius is the lowest core body temperature from which
a hypothermic victim has ever been "brought back to life". The previous
record was reported in 1988 by a Salt Lake City, Utah hospital which
revitalized a 2 year-old boy who had fallen into a cold mountain creek.
The boy's core body temperature had dropped to 19 degrees Celcius, and
he had gone for 66 minutes without breathing.

   Karlee was taken to the Plains Health Centre of Regina, Saskatchewan
(30 kilometres northeast of Rouleau) where she arrived at 9:40 am. A
team of medical staff spent 3 hours re-warming her body, using a
heart-lung bypass machine to replace her stopped heart -- slowly
warming-up her blood. She spent a total of 5 hours on heart bypass
to correct acid levels in her blood. Shock therapy was applied to
her heart twice to keep it beating.

   As of a week later (Wednesday, March 1st) Karlee appears to have
recovered with no apparent neurological damage. She is breathing
without a respirator and is able to eat ice cream. It is still an
open question whether her left leg will have to be amputated.

                -- Ben Best (ben.best%)

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