Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Gunshot victims to be suspended between life and death
New Scientist ^ | Helen Thomson | 26 March 2014

Posted on 03/28/2014 7:48:37 PM PDT by neverdem

Doctors will try to save the lives of 10 patients with knife or gunshot wounds by placing them in suspended animation, buying time to fix their injuries

NEITHER dead or alive, knife-wound or gunshot victims will be cooled down and placed in suspended animation later this month, as a groundbreaking emergency technique is tested out for the first time.

Surgeons are now on call at the UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to perform the operation, which will buy doctors time to fix injuries that would otherwise be lethal.

"We are suspending life, but we don't like to call it suspended animation because it sounds like science fiction," says Samuel Tisherman, a surgeon at the hospital, who is leading the trial. "So we call it emergency preservation and resuscitation."

The technique involves replacing all of a patient's blood with a cold saline solution, which rapidly cools the body and stops almost all cellular activity. "If a patient comes to us two hours after dying you can't bring them back to life. But if they're dying and you suspend them, you have a chance to bring them back after their structural problems have been fixed," says surgeon Peter Rhee at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who helped develop the technique.

The benefits of cooling, or induced hypothermia, have been known for decades. At normal body temperature – around 37 °C – cells need a regular oxygen supply to produce energy. When the heart stops beating, blood no longer carries oxygen to cells. Without oxygen the brain can only survive for about 5 minutes before the damage is irreversible.

However, at lower temperatures, cells need less oxygen because all chemical reactions slow down. This explains why people who fall into icy lakes can sometimes be revived more than half...

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Science
KEYWORDS: suspendedanimation
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-57 next last

1 posted on 03/28/2014 7:48:37 PM PDT by neverdem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem

***suspended between life and death***

And still they are more alive that most Dems.


2 posted on 03/28/2014 7:50:04 PM PDT by Gamecock (If the cross is not foolishness to the lost world then we have misrepresented the cross." S.L.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

I guess these docs never saw the movie ‘re-animator’.... And maybe they should.


3 posted on 03/28/2014 7:51:50 PM PDT by Bullish (America should yank Obama like a rotten tooth before he poisons the entire body)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

While in this state will an automatic vote for the dem be cast? Just wondering


4 posted on 03/28/2014 7:52:47 PM PDT by barmag25 (There is nothing that a man needs that he can't find in the North Georgia mountains.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Darksheare

Undead Thread?


5 posted on 03/28/2014 7:54:41 PM PDT by null and void ( Everything evil in the world may not be Islamic but everything Islamic is evil.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Cold Potassium....

Anyone ever have a potassium IV?

I cannot think of the utter agony one would experience if there was any conscious mental activity.


6 posted on 03/28/2014 7:57:44 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart (I)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

45 years old, Gen X, and I’m seeing science fiction happen right before my eyes that I thought I’d never see in my lifetime. I’d jump for joy if the implications weren’t so damned scary.


7 posted on 03/28/2014 8:00:05 PM PDT by Free Vulcan (Vote Republican! You can vote Democrat when you're dead...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: barmag25

Is there ANY possible topic that can be posted in here that won’t be ruined by people turning it into political crap? Just wondering.


8 posted on 03/28/2014 8:00:56 PM PDT by chessplayer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
I've been reading a lot of classic Poul Anderson lately. Coincidence, or the universe sending a message?
9 posted on 03/28/2014 8:02:45 PM PDT by arderkrag (An Unreconstructed Georgian, STANDING WITH RAND.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Norm Lenhart

Anyone ever have a potassium IV?


Me.


10 posted on 03/28/2014 8:02:49 PM PDT by chessplayer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: chessplayer

Hurts like hell huh? Imagine that multiplied with no end.

Hell incarnate.


11 posted on 03/28/2014 8:04:42 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart (I)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: chessplayer
Is there ANY possible topic that can be posted in here that won’t be ruined by people turning it into political crap? Just wondering.

If you go to a Mopar forum you kind of expect people to be posting about cars. If you go to a Film Noir forum you kind of expect people to post about old movies. When you come to the premier online gathering place for independent, grass-roots conservatism on the web ...

12 posted on 03/28/2014 8:05:00 PM PDT by Pan_Yan (Who told you that you were naked? Genesis 3:11)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Norm Lenhart
Anyone ever have a potassium IV?

No thanks-- I'd rather eat my bananas than have them injected.

13 posted on 03/28/2014 8:06:55 PM PDT by tflabo (Truth or Tyranny)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: chessplayer

No.


14 posted on 03/28/2014 8:15:15 PM PDT by BigIsleGal (Wake Me Up When the Stupid Wears Off)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: barmag25

Dig your homepage.

Well traveled.

Gotta knock Venice off my list.


15 posted on 03/28/2014 8:20:22 PM PDT by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: null and void

That would certainly count as “undead”.


16 posted on 03/28/2014 8:25:30 PM PDT by Darksheare (Try my coffee, first one's free..... Even robots will kill for it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Norm Lenhart

I’ve had one as well. You are completely right...hurts like all get out!

I can’t imagine it multiplied.


17 posted on 03/28/2014 8:32:16 PM PDT by berdie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

I see law suits in the making.

Just wait until the first budding young rap star either does not wake up or wakes up a vegetable. The Dickie Scruggs of this world will be on this like Oprah on a baked ham.


18 posted on 03/28/2014 8:33:41 PM PDT by Tupelo (I feel more like Philip Nolan every day)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

19 posted on 03/28/2014 8:39:05 PM PDT by zadox (Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. Reagan)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Norm Lenhart
6 Cold Potassium.... Anyone ever have a potassium IV? I cannot think of the utter agony one would experience if there was any conscious mental activity.

Mom, aged 81, was rushed to the e-room last year due to nausea. Blood test revealed critically low potassium. She was admitted, conscious, for 2 days and administered potassium IVs. She said it burned like Hades and made the nurses dial back the flow rate for a little relief.

20 posted on 03/28/2014 8:39:46 PM PDT by MacNaughton
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-57 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson