In Spain, doctors have brought a woman back to life after more than six hours without a heartbeat. The 34-year-old Briton suffered a cardiac arrest at the beginning of November while walking in the Spanish Pyrenees, said the University Hospital Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona. The woman could be saved because severe hypothermia had delayed destructive processes in her brain.
In a cardiac arrest occurs after about 15 to 20 seconds to unconsciousness, because the oxygen in the brain is used up quickly. Within a few minutes, irreversible damage and ultimately brain death occur at normal temperatures.
"For a person without a circulatory system, immediate and very powerful cooling can delay brain death for up to 45 minutes, in some cases even a little longer," said Bernd Böttiger, director of the Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at the University Hospital Cologne. At the latest then a cardiopulmonary resuscitation is necessary.
The circulation is kept going, even if the heart does not beat by itself. In this state - cooled and with resuscitation measures - one could theoretically keep a person alive more than six hours, said Böttiger, who is also chairman of the board of the German Council for Resuscitation.
Check, call, press: This is how the revival works
For a revival there are three simple rules: check, call and press. If a person collapses unconscious, one first checks by shaking his shoulders to see if she is still reacting and watches her breathing. Second, you call the emergency services on the phone number 112 . Third, if there is no reaction or respiration, resuscitation must begin immediately until the arrival of the emergency physician. For this purpose, the patient's chest should ideally be compressed about five centimeters at a rate of 100 times per minute . This should not stop you until professional help arrives.
No signs of life when arriving at the clinic
The now recovering woman had shown no signs of life when she arrived at the clinic, the treating physician Eduard Argudo was quoted. "But we knew she had a chance of survival in the context of hypothermia." Although this strong supercooling caused by the cardiac arrest almost the death of Briton, but at the same time protected her organism and her brain from permanent damage.
The Briton had begun to walk "strange and incoherent," according to her husband. Shortly thereafter, she had become unconscious, as a reason is the extreme cold. A helicopter had arrived due to the weather conditions after more than two hours with the couple. The body temperature of the British woman had sunk to 18 degrees to this point.
The patient was then flown to the nearby community of Campdevànol and from there to the University Hospital Vall d'Hebron in Barcelona, about 90 kilometers away. During the entire time the doctors would have reanimated the 34-year-old. At 21:46, after more than six hours without a heartbeat, her body has reached a temperature of 30 degrees again.
Overall, the Briton spent for observation 12 days in the hospital. Now she had recovered almost completely, the broadcaster BBC reported. In the spring she wants to resume hiking.