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New definition of ‘dead’: PA doctors to suspend gunshot victims
Later this month, New Scientist reports that doctors at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Presbyterian Hospital will be testing a procedure that will suspend gunshot and knife-wound victims in a state between life and death.
According to Samuel Tisherman, the surgeon leading the trial, although they “are suspending life, we don’t like to call it suspended animation because it sounds like science fiction. So we call it emergency preservation and resuscitation.”
The procedure calls for replacing all of a patient’s blood with a cold saline solution to induce hypothermia. It was first used on pigs in 2002, at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. Massive hemorrhage wounds were inflicted on sedated pigs whose blood was replaced with a cooled saline solution. Their wounds were treated, and as they slowly warmed, the solution was replaced with their blood.
The pigs’ hearts began beating again — typically on their own, but occasionally with electrical aid — and they showed no ill cognitive or physical effects afterwards.
“After we did those experiments, the definition of ‘dead’ changed,” said surgeon Peter Rhee, who helped refine the procedure. “Every day at work I declare people dead. They have no signs of life, no heartbeat, no brain activity. I sign a piece of paper knowing in my heart that they are not actually dead. I could, right then and there, suspend them. But I have to put them in a body bag. It’s frustrating to know there’s a solution.”
“We’ve always assumed that you can’t bring back the dead. But it’s a matter of when you pickle the cells,” said Rhee.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/26/new-definition-of-dead-pa-doctors-to-suspend-gunshot-victims-between-this-life-and-next/
According to Samuel Tisherman, the surgeon leading the trial, although they “are suspending life, we don’t like to call it suspended animation because it sounds like science fiction. So we call it emergency preservation and resuscitation.”
The procedure calls for replacing all of a patient’s blood with a cold saline solution to induce hypothermia. It was first used on pigs in 2002, at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. Massive hemorrhage wounds were inflicted on sedated pigs whose blood was replaced with a cooled saline solution. Their wounds were treated, and as they slowly warmed, the solution was replaced with their blood.
The pigs’ hearts began beating again — typically on their own, but occasionally with electrical aid — and they showed no ill cognitive or physical effects afterwards.
“After we did those experiments, the definition of ‘dead’ changed,” said surgeon Peter Rhee, who helped refine the procedure. “Every day at work I declare people dead. They have no signs of life, no heartbeat, no brain activity. I sign a piece of paper knowing in my heart that they are not actually dead. I could, right then and there, suspend them. But I have to put them in a body bag. It’s frustrating to know there’s a solution.”
“We’ve always assumed that you can’t bring back the dead. But it’s a matter of when you pickle the cells,” said Rhee.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/26/new-definition-of-dead-pa-doctors-to-suspend-gunshot-victims-between-this-life-and-next/
10 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
If I ever invent anything that is like science fiction, I'm absolutely going to go around telling everybody "Holy crap, look at my invention, it's like fucking science fiction!"
