X-Message-Number: 3757
From: 
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 1995 16:44:42 -0500
Subject: Teams & Times (2)

(I previously posted something like this, but it apparently did not come
through.)

Mike Darwin (#3737)  was mostly on target in his comments on local cryonics
emergency teams vs. traveling teams, but a couple of his statements were
somewhat misleading.

1. He said that old-style CPR with ice bags for cooling will not cool the
brain core to room temperature for 8 hours. 

Actually, the patient will NOT be warm for 8 hours or anything like it. From
the time the local team is allowed to begin work until the time of local
washout and perfusion with precooled solutions, elapsed time should not be
more than about an hour.

Nevertheless, we and others are working on ways to speed up the initial
cooling.

2. Mike indicated that, in cold-water drownings, the heart keeps beating. (He
was making the point that quick external cooling alone will not be very
effective on a clinically dead patient, whereas I had noted that the
recoveries after drowning in cold water show that quick cooling along CAN be
very effective in minimizing damage in the hypothermic phase.)

Not for long. Asphyxiation of any sort stops the heart pretty quickly--within
a few minutes, I believe. If a drowning victim was under water for 45 minutes
(as some who recovered have been), for most of that time the heart was NOT
beating.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society


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