| I'm reluctant to say this... But future generations will probably laugh at us. Our rule of thumb about deprivation of oxygen and brain damage is based on the idea that brain damage occurs on the "down" side when the brain is deprived. Actually, the damage occurs on the "up" side when a patient is revived under non-ideal circumstances for brain operation. It turns out the brain if you wake it "up" properly can stay "down" as long as other organs. Think kidneys frozen for 24 hours before being successly transplanted. And a proper wake up involves slow extracorporeal rewarming as mentioned in one of the top comments. If we can accept this down/up inversion as true, then it means that rushing to revive a patient is what does the damage. It means applying CPR in the field as soon as possible does the damage. If true, it means 20 minutes, or even 2 hours, of not breathing is nothing as long as the cold body is rewarmed slowly. If true, it means it is better to keep the brain "down", body "frozen", everything cold as possible (but above the temp of ice crystals riping apart blood cells causing permanent limb loss) until --and this is the key part-- a proper wake "up" can be performed. If true it means the current limits observed with oxygen deprivation exist only because we are still concerned with reviving as soon as possible. Leave that child passed out! (But keep 'em cold.) If all this is true, it means that saving a loved one is best done buy applying ice over applying CPR. Future generations will shake their heads in disbelief, at how many people we have needlessly injured and killed with the barbaric practice of rushing to revive. I look forward to the improvement in how we save/restore lives. I look forward to the improvement from the slow but steady diffusion through our collective awareness of of the idea: Down-and-cold-is-okay/
Prematurely-revived-is-bad. |