
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 14, 1994                   TAG: 9402120157
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DON COLBURN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOW THE DOCTORS MANAGED TO REVIVE A FROZEN BOY, 6

Last February, a 6-year-old boy fell into an icy alpine river near Innsbruck, Austria, and was swept away before he could be rescued. Firefighters pulled his body from the water four miles downstream. The air temperature was 25 degrees, the water 36.5 degrees. The boy was submerged for 65 minutes.

By the time he was pulled from the river, his heart had stopped beating and his body temperature had plummeted to 62, far below the point at which hypothermia is usually fatal. Attempts to revive him by cardiopulmonary resuscitation as he was flown by helicopter to a nearby hospital were unsuccessful.

A year later, he's fine and back in school, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Ironically, one reason for his miraculous survival was the sudden and extreme cold he endured, which slowed his metabolism dramatically and reduced his body's need for oxygen-rich blood, doctors concluded.

At the hospital, the boy's blood was gradually rewarmed by cardiopulmonary bypass, which took the place of his useless heart and lungs while the blood circulated outside of his body.

For about an hour and a half, his blood was pumped out of a vein in his thigh, through the artificial lung that replenished it with oxygen, and back into an artery. When his body temperature had risen to 91 degrees, his heartbeat resumed and blood pressure began to approach normal.

Six days later, the boy's breathing tube was removed and his condition began to improve, three Innsbruck doctors reported in a letter to the journal. Five months later, they said, "he had almost fully recovered, and he was able to return to kindergarten." The only apparent lasting symptom is weak or disrupted nerve sensation in the extremities.

"This rare case demonstrates the possibility of successful resuscitation with good functional recovery after submersion in very cold water for more than an hour," the Innsbruck doctors wrote.

They recommended gradual rewarming by cardiopulmonary bypass for hypothermia and near-drowning victims with body temperatures above 54 degrees, emphasizing that it is "important to keep the patient cold during transport until bypass can be initiated."

by CNB