Patients’ hearts often stop working, especially during a heart attack. But that does not mean that they cannot be saved.

CBS news reports on how to bring patients back from the dead.

There are many patients whose doctors are able to revive them after a heart attack or after their heart stops beating for some other reason.

CBS explains the story of one man from Brooklyn, “Five years ago, Joe -- then 56 and in good health -- was at work as a driver in New York City one hot August day when he felt sick . . . really sick. ‘I just suddenly didn't feel like myself,’ he recalled. ‘I didn't know what it was. So I called home and I spoke to my wife and I told her, I don't feel good. I think I want to just come home. And that's when she said to me, why don't you just go to the hospital?’ He walked into New York Presbyterian on his own power -- and promptly dropped dead. ‘It was like they shut the lights out and I just collapsed and fell on the floor. My heart stopped, and the nurse was -- I heard screaming. And that was it.’ But that wasn't it. Tiralosi was brought back from the dead. He says it was divine intervention, but it's also a testament to perseverance of his medical team, and the power of some bone-chilling cold.”

Amazing new advancements have been made in medicine for reviving patients, such as the concept of preserving people in a cold temperature.

One doctor who runs the resuscitation program at Stony Brook Medical School told CBS, “Now, the reality is we know that today if those people (who drowned on the Titanic) had been found, many of them could potentially have been saved. Because by virtue of dying in ice cold water, their brain and their cells would've been preserved. People who had died could've been saved if they had died today, and if -- and I say this with a capital ‘I’ -- if all the right care had been provided them. The level of progress in resuscitation after people die has advanced enormously: It's astonishing."

Dr. Sam explains how cold temperatures help preserve people, “Cooling, buys us time. So, for example, if somebody were to suddenly collapse and die at home, what we could do is go into the freezer and take out our frozen peas, frozen vegetables, put them on the body, and try to do CPR at the same time, so we can slow down the rate by which they're getting brain damage."

 

Gerry Oginski
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NY Medical Malpractice & Personal Injury Trial Lawyer
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