New views on death

[ed34]

I have been watching a documentry presented by an anaesthetist, regarding lowering body temperature during surgery. It all came about when a woman Doctor in Norway was skiing and fell through some cracked ice, trapping herself in frozen water. It was several hours before she got to the hospital and was actually considered dead because of her pupils and having no brain activity. They put her onto a bypass machine which gradually warmed her blood and her heart actually started beating again. A few days later she woke up and started her slow recovery. She is now totally normal. This goes against everything believed about death. There was no brain activity at all, yet she kept her memories and all body functions. Nobody knows why being cold has this effect on cells. A man required an aortic aneurysm to be operated on quickly, it was due to rupture. His heart was stopped while a bypass machine took his blood, cooled it to around 18 C and was pumped back into his body. All the monitors were flatline. No brain actitivity, dilated pupils and no heart beat. He was what would be normally classed as dead.
His aortic arch was repaired in 30 mins, the deadline was 40 mins before they dare not revive him. They warmed his blood slowly, shocked his heart back and he is now recovered completely. Compelling further research, cell structure and behaviour was studied to try and understand what happens during freezing. In a Lab, living cells were deprived of Oxygen and everyone expected them to die, but they didn't. It was the reintroduction of Oxygen which seemed to kill them. It turns out there's a suicide switch in all cells, the mitochondria. These decide if a cell should function or die. Nobody knows why these mitochondria decide a cell should just die, but it has been discovered that cooling seems to help change its mind. It has also been found in the UK that adding zenon gas (noble gas) to air, helps with the cooling and helps babies with born with oxygen deprived brains make a full recovery. Still in its trial stages, but it seems it will help decrease fatalities by 60% or more.
It looks like the future for almost all major surgery will be involving cooling.

[ed34]

I think it will. The brain can be starved from oxygen for around 40 mins, rather than seconds. As well as receiving cold blood, the head is covered completely with bags of ice which lowers the temperature by a further 2 degrees. I'm glad you don't wake up until you are nice and warm.

[ireneo]

I think that would be fantastic if they could use the technique. There are so many people that have gone through heart surgeries, brain surgeries that recovered but just weren't the same. Their personality, their feelings and behavior were changed so much it worried the family members. This might prevent that.