Apparently dead: Frozen man is "resurrected" by medical staff

In effect, Justin Smith had frozen to death. But he managed to escape to tell the story.



Justin Smith, an American aged 26, was returning to walk home after drinking with friends in Tresckow, in the US state of Pennsylvania. It was snowing and the temperature reached -4 ° C. At some point, Smith believed to have fallen and hit his head. And so it was, in the freezing cold, until his father found nearly 12 hours later. "He was blue His face -..... He was dead I checked the pulse I checked the heartbeat I had nothing," says his father, Don Smith. Paramedics also found no sign of life - a coroner was called and contacted police to start investigating the death of the boy.

This could be another tragic story, as the woman was also found frozen after leaving a party. But fortunately the case of Justin was one of the times where the medicine showed that it is able to perform incredible feats. Upon arriving at the hospital, the doctor on duty, Gerald Coleman, ordered cardiopulmonary resuscitation measures were taken in a person with no pulse, no blood pressure and apparently not breathing.

For two hours, the medical team performed chest compressions and blew air into Justin's mouth, until he was able to be transported to another hospital. There, his blood was removed from the body, heated, and then returned. A little later, his heart began to beat alone. After so long without brain oxygenation, no one knew what would be the consequences. When he awoke from a coma two weeks after the incident, he was perfect - weak and without the toes and fingers of her hand, but with the intact brain. For those who might have been in a vegetative state forever, it seems a good deal.

Doctors performed a great job to insist on Justin resuscitation: but the very body of the student also deserves credit. Our metabolism slows down between 5% and 7% per degree of temperature that the body loses: the colder, slower metabolism. This causes the cells require a much lower amount of oxygen, which protects the body against the other effects of exposure to cold. The surgeon James Wu, who attended Justin in the hospital to which he was transferred, says: "When you have a very low temperature, it can preserve the brain and other organ functions."