Ice water drowning survival of young patient (2025)

Reminds of Chris Lemons, who survived for 30+ minutes without oxygen at the bottom of the North Sea. Cold water (and experience, like staying calm) probably played a large part. He went back to diving a few weeks after!

They made a movie about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Breath_(2019_film)

I'd be curious to read about 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 year follow-up.

Party pooper warning.

I'm afraid I don't have rose tinted glasses, due to personal experience with a family member with TBI (accident at age 16, 3 weeks in a coma). The aftereffects are profoundly destabilizing to his environment. I sometimes have quite a dark view of people's need to be a rescuer and celebrate the "alive!", when they don't have to deal with the next 40-60 years of living...

"Survival" here being, of course, not a black-and-white thing:

    > Outcome and Follow-Up
    > On day 59, the boy was discharged to inpatient neurorehabilitation. At 6-month follow-up, he was giving short commands, standing without support, riding a tricycle, eating soft foods, and relearning simple tasks. Peripheral neuromuscular weakness continued to improve.

That is incredible. 2.5 hours underwater, 1.5 hours of CPR. They were instructed not to start rewarming him until he could be given more comprehensive treatment at a hospital. They list 'death' as a differential diagnosis...

He didn't come out unscathed though. They describe his progress:

> At 6-month follow-up, he was giving short commands, standing without support, riding a tricycle, eating soft foods, and relearning simple tasks. Peripheral neuromuscular weakness continued to improve.

which is quite limited for an 8-year old, but remarkable considering the circumstances.

I remember that cryogenesis was deemed viable in the 80ies but essentially surface area is your enemy. Anything larger than a cat can’t be resurrected. It’s pretty bizarre really, they froze mice and microwaved them back to life.

They’re not dead until they’re warm and dead.

I was rewatching The Abyss for the first time since 1989 and wondered just what is the process for reviving an asystole heart[^1].

[^1]: It was only relatively recently that I learned you can't shock an asystole heart. e.g. https://medicalsciences.stackexchange.com/questions/5874/can...

Incredible. I wonder if they can make progress on survivability of regular drowning.

Reminds me of the extended description of what it might be like to drown in an ice lake in the book Stella Maris — it wouldn't be quick.

Well written article. Life is a miracle. We are trying to understand it & there is more to learn everyday. I remember a couple of years ago, a 50yr patient (someone I know) was saved from a severe heart attack using induced hypothermia and recovering them slowly.

Do you give slow CPR in these cases?

I am sceptical about the 147 minutes, the child could have still clinging onto the ice and just drowned a minute before the parents reached the pond.

There was some medical terminology that I didn't understand. The NotebookLLM podcast version is disturbingly good: https://notebooklm.google.com/notebook/21c5eddb-ada4-4726-85...

Wim hof has a similar childhood story (maybe not quite as extreme)...

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