When someone goes into cardiac arrest his or her heart stops suddenly. This causes the blood to stop flowing, and cells use up all of their oxygen in about ten seconds and all of their glucose in five minutes. After this happens, one’s cells actually poison themselves with a wash of deadly chemicals. Usually doctors use a defibrillator to shock the heart back into action which would get the blood moving and deliver the oxygen and glucose to the cells. Unfortunately, if you are not already at a hospital and this is not done quickly enough, permanent damage can result, including brain damage within five minutes. One out of twenty people survive cardiac arrest, but Peter Safar wants to make it one in three. Peter Safar is well-known in the field of resuscitation studies and researches at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center. He discovered that your body will slow the deadly chemicals if its temperature is lowered enough- by around 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit. He tested his theory on dogs and discovered that he could extend the five minute time limit to ten. In these experiments he had used a small heart and lung machine that cooled the blood and sent it back in the system. But however great Safar’s discovery was, it was not able to transfer it to the field because it was too complex and not transportable.
Safar was not the only one working on this. Michael Darwin of the 21st Century Medicine (now the Critical Research Center) was also looking for a way to quickly cool victims of cardiac arrest. He knew about a mouse who had survived after being submerged in the liquid perflurocarbon. Not only does this liquid does not harm air pockets in the lungs, it can also be made to carry oxygen and carbon dioxide. According to Darwin, paramedic would treat someone who had just suffered from their heart stopping by using an endotracheal tube to send the perflurocarbon into the person’s lungs. This amazing liquid would conatin enough oxygen to keep the person going and cool the blood that would circulate and then cool the brain.
Once again, Darwin and Safar were not the only people to have discovered this. Another group of people had been working with perflocarbon but had used two tubes, one inside the other, to transfer the liquid and oxygen separately which was ultimately better for cooling the brain. Darwin paired up with Steven Harris of his Critical Research Center and their method for cooling was three times as high as any other external methods. Using dogs, they found that the blood temperature could fall by fourteen degrees in eighteen minutes, which in turn cooled the brain by about thirteen degrees.
These discoveries were announced in 1999 at a medical conference and spread the word and excitement of rapid brain cooling procedures. Other researchers got involved, including Ken Kanza who had perfected the shape of ice particles that would aid in the cooling process. So far, they had successfully cooled a living dog and brought it back to its normal temperature- twelve times. Currently five prototypes are being made and the future looks promising for this new development. They are working on designs that will be easily transported, like on an ambulance for emergencies and its estimated this new development could save one hundred thousand lives a year.

My Response: I think that is amazing- to admit someone into some sort of hypothermic state. And that liquid- perflurocarbon I have no idea how it carries oxygen or how it can be in your lungs and not damage anything but I am really glad it does. I like how all the researchers came together to pull this off. Each one on their own couldn’t accomplish it but together they made it happen. I hope this really ends up in the field, and that it will save all the lives they are hoping it will. Five minutes is a small window in which the brain damage could occur, but if they can get that up to ten minutes, many more will have a second chance at life.

http://discovermagazine.com/2001/oct/feattech