6 ms·
Does drowning not imply death? Is there different definition for drowning (or death) in medicine? EDIT: I'm referring to the fact that the title says the gir
by ilitirit 9y ago
Does drowning not imply death? Is there different definition for drowning (or death) in medicine?
EDIT: I'm referring to the fact that the title says the girl drowned, not that she was at some point "drowning".
- nerdponx 9y agoI think the idea is that she was more or less dead for a while.
- whorleater 9y ago> The World Health Organization in 2005 defined drowning as "the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid". from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning
- ilitirit 9y agoThat is the act of drowning though, or isn't it? eg. You can be drowning, but still be rescued. It's no big deal, but I've also thought that if someone drowned it implies they died.
- smichel17 9y agoDefine "died". It's not as easy as you might think, because as medical technology improves, the point of no return slips farther away. Per the article, this child's heart stopped beating for 2 hours.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ilitirit 9y agoI know, hence my original question. Although it says the child's heart stopped beating "on its own", which implies that it was still beating through "artificial" means.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- koolba 9y agoDrowning is asphyxiation within a liquid (generally water). It usually leads to death but not always. You can end up with significant brain damage, due to oxygen deprivation, and still survive though.
- 83457 9y agoNo. Look it up
- noelwelsh 9y agoNot an expert here, but I think there are two recognised types of death: heart stops working (what is usually meant by death) and brain stops working (aka brain death). In this case it seems her heart stopped working so she did in fact die, by one definition. It seems she was well on her way to brain death as well.
- umanwizard 9y agoNo, what’s usually meant by death is definitely “brain stops working forever”.
- Djvacto 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death "Clinical death is the medical term for cessation of blood circulation and breathing[...] It occurs when the heart stops beating in a regular rhythm, a condition called cardiac arrest. The term is also sometimes used in resuscitation research. Stopped blood circulation has historically proven irreversible in most cases. Prior to the invention of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), defibrillation, epinephrine injection, and other treatments in the 20th century, the absence of blood circulation (and vital functions related to blood circulation) was historically considered the official definition of death. With the advent of these strategies, cardiac arrest came to be called clinical death rather than simply death, to reflect the possibility of post-arrest resuscitation."
- jobu 9y ago"There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead." - Miracle Max (Princess Bride, 1987) That quote is meant to be funny, but with modern medicine it's also true. The girl's heart wasn't beating for 2 hours, which meets most people's definition of dead. She was given CPR and proper treatment, so the fact that she survived is not too surprising in this day and age. What's absolutely amazing that she recovered from brain damage due to oxygen deprivation. Hopefully this isn't just a fluke.