Patients as popsicle

I once packed a patient who had suffered an acute MI (heart attack) and was on the vent into a body bag with ice leaving only the head sticking out. The cardio thoracic surgeon at another facility wanted him packaged and shipped that way via EMS. You should have seen the look on the medics face when he saw the "package".

Now from the AP:

It took five shocks to get Cynthia Crawford's heart to start beating again after she collapsed at Ochsner Clinic a few weeks ago. A dramatic rescue, to be sure, yet it was routine care that she could have had at any hospital.

What came next, though, was not.

As she lay unconscious, doctors placed her in an inflatable cocoon-like pool that sprayed her naked body with hundreds of icy-cold jets of water, plunging her into hypothermia.

"Like jumping in the North Sea," said the cardiologist leading her care, Dr. Paul McMullan.

Days later, Crawford was recovering without the long-term harm she might have suffered.

The rest Study will examine whether frigid water can slow tissue death from heart attack

Product website: Life Recovery Systems