Those that use it often do so inconsistently, incompletely or with big delays, experts say. Yet many hospitals have been slow to pick up the procedure. Benjamin Abella, a doctor at the Center for Resuscitation Science at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “We are pushing into the gray zone and grabbing people back,” said Dr. Since 2005, it’s been a staple part of resuscitation guidelines, inspiring a newfound can-do attitude in a growing number of emergency physicians across the country. In 2009, an analysis of earlier studies showed it increased the chances that people like Sproull would survive with intact brain function by more than half. It’s also the only treatment proven to protect the brain after cardiac arrest. As medical procedures go, it’s among the simplest: Chill the patient about six degrees Fahrenheit - using cold intravenous saline, cooling blankets or ice packs - and wait 24 hours then re-warm the patient slowly and cross your fingers. And of those who do, many end up in nursing homes with crippling brain injury.ĭoctors say those statistics could change, however, if more people had access to a procedure called therapeutic hypothermia - cooling the body. ![]() Even if the heart is restarted, only a minority make it. Despite massive investments in research and technology, fewer than eight in 100 leave the hospital alive, a rate that has remained stagnant for almost 30 years. In fact, the vast majority of the 300,000 Americans who suffer cardiac arrest every year die. If he made it to the hospital alive, chances were his brain would be so profoundly damaged that he would never be able to live a normal life again. He was in a deep coma and barely breathing. ![]() Still, it was far from clear that Sproull would survive. Within a few minutes of the cardiac arrest, a company employee trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) had jolted Sproull’s heart back to its normal rhythm. Sproull’s shirt had been ripped open, and electrodes from a so-called automated external defibrillator (AED) were glued to his chest. “We shocked him with the AED and we think we have a pulse,” one woman kneeling next to the body told Griesser. He had to cut through a crowd to get to Sproull. Responding to the 911 call from De Lage Landen, EMS Captain Chris Griesser of Berwyn Fire Company arrived less than 15 minutes later. ![]() Unbeknownst to the colleague with him in the elevator, Sproull’s heart had entered a state of electric anarchy, no longer pumping out blood. He didn’t grab his chest, he didn’t indicate any pain or discomfort, he just closed his eyes and slumped down, coffee in hand. As he stepped into the elevator at De Lage Landen Financial Services in Wayne, Pennsylvania, he had no reason to suspect he would end up in a limbo between life and death. REUTERS/Tim ShafferĪt 58, he had arrived at work feeling fit and healthy. Nurse researcher Marian Leary (top) applies a cooling wrap on research assistant David Fried during a body cooling for trauma patients demonstration at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 3, 2010.
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