13 ms·

What it’s like to die

250 points by joshbuckley 14y ago

sukuriant 14y ago
Just don't take your luck for granted... it's about that time that it's stripped out from you.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
I can certainly vouch for the suggestion that being grateful for the things you have (feeling lucky) is also a key component in my personal happiness quotient.
j_s 14y ago
Discussion of Dustin Curtis's perspective on this event: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4740540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4740540 A good reminder to make sure you have an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) nearby. (Make sure your company has one!) http://gregaed.org/aed-basics/ http://gregaed.org/aed-basics/
- vxNsr 14y ago
  I was under the impression that in most states it's required in a gym...
graue 14y ago
This reminds me a bit of Mary Rose Cook's story, "When I died": http://maryrosecook.com/post/when-i-died-2 http://maryrosecook.com/post/when-i-died-2
jemfinch 14y ago
I'm (only a little bit) sorry to be so pedantic, but I've grown weary of this modern misuse of death for hyperbolic effect. You didn't die. You weren't dead and you aren't now resurrected. You experienced a very serious medical event, and you almost died, but didn't. Even metaphorically, you didn't die: you're still around. Robert Pirsig can claim that Phaedrus died; you cannot, because you're still here. I don't know why this small untruth bothers me so, but it really does.
- gertef 14y ago
  Because death is really serious business. Misinformation hurts.
- hnriot 14y ago
  Also, it wood be nice if peepol proof readed there blogs a little more often two.
  - rosser 14y ago
    And their comments.
    - jontas 14y ago
      I didn't notice at first, but based on the number of obvious typos in the parent, I'm pretty certain it was intentional.
      - rosser 14y ago
        They also edited their comment to make it glaringly, unmistakably obvious. When I commented, the their/there mistake was the only typo.
- rosser 14y ago
  While I get the point you're trying to make, and even somewhat agree with it, there are two definitions of "death" in play. The problem isn't hyperbole; it's simply one of equivocating between them. There's clinical death, which the author of TFA very likely did experience. If VF continues for anything longer than a few seconds, asystole frequently occurs. Among other things, asystole is definitive of "clinical death." On the other hand, there's death death. This is the one where we bury you and mourn you and so-on. Yes, they're very much not the same thing. Yes, the author is probably equivocating between them, at least a little. But no, his describing what he experienced as "death" is not hyperbolic — at least not according to the clinical definition.
  - 14y ago
abecedarius 14y ago
The paramedics arrived and walked slowly down the length of the pool to the gym. This was procedure, they later told me, they didn't want to run and cause alarm. That shocks me a little.
- abredow 14y ago
  We talked about this in a CPR class once. The biggest reason paramedics don't run is to avoid injury, which would obviously impede their ability to help.
  - adamzerner 14y ago
    That makes sense if the area around the pool is slippery. It's just that given the tremendous downside of risking the victim's life or brain damage, it seems that the paramedics wouldn't be risking much by hustling a little, rather than "walking slowly". Unless it was really slippery, or if they thought someone was going to flip out to the point where it seriously interfered with the CPR, taking your time doesn't seem like the best thing to do for the victim.
  - hnriot 14y ago
    What has happened to humans??? millions of years evolving to a truly miraculous level of efficiency and agility and we still don't think that possibly moving a little quickly to someone who's heart has stopped is a good idea? Since there were paramedics (plural) it wouldn't impede anything if they ran, and it would most certainly increase the chances of saving someone. To me this is disgraceful, it sounds like OSHA got involved and made policy something that must surely be counter intuitive. Yes, I know the statistics of small risk- done often, but this is such a sad condition for our special to have reached when people carrying life saving equipment don't move a little faster to save someone.
    - angersock 14y ago
      There's a time to be an excited fool and leap blindly into action, and then there is a time be a professional and carefully move into place to do your work quietly and skillfully. You wouldn't happen to use a staging server, would you?
steven2012 14y ago
Somewhat related, but I remember watching MC Hammer on Oprah. Oprah was interviewing him about his bankruptcy, fall from grace, etc, and at one point, he said something to the effect of "Please, I don't want anyone to feel any sympathy towards me. Even after losing everything, my worst day is better than most people's best days. I'm still blessed." It's really easy, especially in Silicon Valley, to fall into the "Poor Little Rich Boy" syndrome as well. I'm currently trying to buy a >$1M house in the Bay Area (very common), and have gotten outbid by $100k+ time and time again. One of my friends said "I heard you're having problems trying to get a house." My response, thinking exactly of that MC Hammer interview, was "Not having money to afford a place is a problem. Being in the position to be outbid on $1M houses is a really lucky." I guess after reading the author's post, we in this industry should really feel blessed and know we're living a life that most people on this planet would think is a dream. It really puts things in perspective, and we hopefully shouldn't need a life-threatening event to come to this realization.
- hello_newman 14y ago
  Totally agree. So many people would kill to be in the positions some of us are in to pursue opportunities, chase our dreams, and be able to participate in the current zeitgeist and contribute to the world. If you can do that, you're already a success in my book.
jeromeparadis 14y ago
A more appropriate title would have been "What it's like to wake up after dying". Glad he's feeling great. He's mainly lucky someone who know CPR was around soon after his cardiac failure. That's the main reason why he defied statistics and it stacked odds in his favor. Otherwise, more than 4 minutes before intervention and you're almost guaranteed to be dead or at least brain damaged.
mcmatterson 14y ago
I lost my dad last week to this exact same event. My parents live in the country, and my elderly mother didn't have the training (or lack of panic) to attempt CPR. Although members of the local volunteer fire department were on site within 7 minutes with an AED, I'm actually quite comforted in the knowledge that there never really was any hope for him. One of the few nice things about vfib is that it's quick and painless, and the grim survival statistics mean that there wasn't really anything that could have been done differently in my dad's case.
- davidw 14y ago
  Sorry to hear that:-(
davycro 14y ago
the iphone app pulsepoint is worth mentioning here. its designed to alert people with cpr training when a cardiac arrest occurs near them. if more people use this app them more people should survive this type of accident
JohnBooty 14y ago
"If there is one lesson I took away from the experience it is not to “live life to the fullest” or “have no regrets”. It is to feel lucky. Feeling lucky means you are appreciating the things in your life that sometimes go unnoticed. It means you are achieving more than think you deserve. Feeling lucky requires a certain humility we often lose sight of." I came somewhat close to death due to something that happened with my heart once. Probably not as close as the author of the article, but definitely close enough to make one re-examine a few things. For me, in addition to feeling lucky and grateful, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that it made me much less patient when dealing with unnecessary unpleasantries. It's hard not to shout, "Really? I have to fill out this ridiculous form and then call so-and-so? Do you guys even KNOW how insanely short and fragile life is, and we're wasting it here talking about this ridiculous thing?" I deal with the necessary unpleasantries a little better now than I did before. When one of the pets makes a mess on the floor, I can't say I really enjoy cleaning it up now - but I still have to think about how wonderful and lucky it is that the pet and I are both here.
csomar 14y ago
The author experienced Clinical Death[1] and not permanent death. However, it's interesting now that we are close to singularity, death may be no longer death. What does it mean to die if I upload your brain and make another process of yourself? Is death related to the body or losing consciousness? Finally, dying is like sleeping. You are not around when you are dead. The author certainly got a shock from the things that happened to him and the thoughts of not existing any more and not experiencing death per se. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  The sleep thing is a very bad argument on issues of death. I don't know about the rest of you, but I was always under the impression it's normal to drift in and out of various partial forms of consciousness immediately before, during, and after sleep. If dying was like sleeping, it would include the occasional moment of waking up to notice how comfortable your blanket is, roll over, and fall back adead. What does it mean to die if I upload your brain and make another process of yourself? Is death related to the body or losing consciousness? Well, that mostly depends on how you've defined "to die". I can easily imagine that the neo-Victorian Phyle will pass a law banning brain-copying after clinical death as an abomination, for instance. The thing about playing God is that you have to start writing your own rules.
- krapp 14y ago
  What does it mean to die if I upload your brain and make another process of yourself? Is death related to the body or losing consciousness? Assuming that something we will retroactively refer to as singlulary ever occurs, and that we are close to singluarity, and that it ever takes a form which leads to some kind of ubiquitous 'upload' of a brain model that somehow acts and reacts as a brain in a skull in meatspace would (and all of these qualifiers are debatable,) you still die. In the future the notion of what it means to be alive, and human, and dead, may be reinterpreted so that these models are considered to be, essentially, the same being as their original. But this redefinition would be semantics. Nothing frees you from the absolute and irrevocable nature of your death, in this or any other universe, ever. The post-singularity upload is still a copy, however good, and at this point the analogy of copying minds as software breaks down, because the mind isn't separate from the brain, and whether or not there's an entity on the wires which believes itself to be you, you are still no less dead.
danshapiro 14y ago
Recently took a CPR class in Seattle. Not for any particular reason, just because it seemed like a handy skill to pick up for two hours time invested. I learned a few interesting bits of trivia. --Seattle has the highest survival rate for heart stop events in the world at 56%. That's because of pioneering advances in EMT training, broad availability of AEDs, high percentage of people trained, etc. --When I asked for a point of comparison, he said Detroit was 4%. --AEDs don't actually bring you back to consciousness. They just make CPR more effective. (much more!) --Bad CPR is much better than no CPR. So much so that high end AEDs will actually teach you CPR with voice prompts, since it's better than sitting there. Some 911 operators will coach you through it as well. Even if your CPR is rusty, it's worth trying. --Modern CPR (for adults) no longer includes rescue breaths. Mouth-to-mouth was too much of a turnoff, and chest compressions alone are very effective given the response times of ambulances. --And most importantly - $40 and two hours can save a life! You can set yourself up here: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/CPR_UCM_001118_SubHomePage.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/CPR_UCM_001118_SubHo...
- danielweber 14y ago
  I heard somewhere that plain old CPR was very unlikely to help. Still probably better than nothing if someone is there with their heart not beating. Does this go along with your stats? EDIT: By sheer coincidence I found my stat about CPR while commenting on another thread. http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die/ideas/nexus/ http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die...
  - danshapiro 14y ago
    Plain old CPR by itself, with no ambulance on the way, is very unlikely to help. (That was another interesting tidbit - people almost never "wake up" while CPR is being administered). Ambulance + plain old CPR, however, is much more effective than Ambulance + yelling "ITS GOING TO BE OK!" or playing Angry Birds or whatever. I don't remember the stats on effectiveness of performing CPR while waiting for the ambulance vs. not, but they were persuasive.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
gyom 14y ago
The most interesting part of that post ties with something that Richard Dawkins likes to remind us : "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia."
- brokenparser 14y ago
  I think it's a religious belief to think splooge has lots of tiny people in it (and therefore one should refrain from pleasing oneself), but it's really just unicellular organisms (which I think may outnumber all the grains of sand on Earth).
  - maxerickson 14y ago
    Unsurprisingly, that isn't quite the angle uber-athiest Richard Dawkins is using: http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/91-to-live-at-all-is-miracle-enough http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/91-to-live-at-all-is-...
  - gyom 14y ago
    He wasn't talking about homunculus, if that's what you mean, but I didn't imagine there could be confusion about what he meant. It's basically like thinking about the kids that could have had if you had descendants with person A instead of person B. There's nobody around to be disappointed for not being born, but those who got be alive are "lucky" in a certain sense of the word.
dzuc 14y ago
What exactly are the risk factors that lead up to this type of event?
- teddyknox 14y ago
  That's what I want to know, this is scary stuff...
- Alex3917 14y ago
  At age 21, prescription amphetamines are probably the biggest risk factor.
  - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
    Prescription stimulants are remarkably safe in sensible doses—they make the heart beat faster but do little to destabilize it. The stimulant risk comes from cocaine, which directly interferes with electricity by jamming sodium channels shut.
    - Alex3917 14y ago
      They're relatively safe for any given individual, but overall they're still a huge factor in sudden cardiac arrest at this age.
      - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
        A few minutes with PubMed turns up no causal relationship. One study did find a sudden cardiac death odds ratio of ~2, but the dose response curve was flat suggesting lack of causality.
- kayoone 14y ago
  It is often related to hypertrophy of the heart muscle, at least this is a common cause in the sudden death of young athletes.
jcfrei 14y ago
wow, this is must be the first and only one of those cheesy stories that I can actually relate to. thanks.
funthree 14y ago
Death is permanent; you didn't die.
squozzer 14y ago
I have a bit of a cruel streak, but I always joke about pretending the flames of hell are licking my soul as I die and scaring the bejeezus out of anyone who might be in earshot of my passing.
anigbrowl 14y ago
This would have been just as interesting and clickworthy with a title like 'I had a massive heart attack at 21.' As it is, the story has nothing to do with the title at all.
louvicious 14y ago
Very insightful, great post.
hello_newman 14y ago
Svbtle never ceases to amaze me when I read an article. This was another example of a great article. I think the author brings up a fabulous point; be grateful for everything you have. It is so easy to get caught up in our lives and to envy others who have the newest this or the latest that. But to truly be grateful for what you have, material or otherwise, family, friends, doing things you love etc is so important. We often don't realize how lucky we are to just be alive, in good health, surrounded by people who love us. As long as you have that, you are in my opinion among the few lucky people on earth. Kudos on a great article.
rdl 14y ago
What state is this where a gym didn't have an AED? Also, where paramedics arrive onsite in 4.5 minutes. The intersection of those two states is a very small set.
martinced 14y ago
"Of those that do survive, more than half of them have brain damage." I've read a theory that if as soon as someone as heart attack you put ice on his head you lower the risk of permanent brain damage. If I'm not mistaken there's been a doctor / hospital / ambulances allowing to test this theory in the U.S. (don't remember which one) and they had apparently statistically significant better results when ambulancers did immediately put the head in ice. Our brain is one heck of a CPU and when the blood doesn't cool it it starts melting fast apparently : ( Lowering temp to 32 deg certainly helped but apparently every second counts: the faster you put the head in ice, the lower the brain damage. So while someone is trying to do CPR, someone else should go fetch lots of ice. Interesting "feeling lucky to have a great life that I just want to continue to live". Welcome back!
- ams6110 14y ago
  That would be 32 C I guess... certainly they didn't freeze him...
- ramchip 14y ago
  Cells require less oxygen at lower temperatures (metabolism slows down), so a cold brain could cope better with lower blood oxygen levels.
achivetta 14y ago
Go watch this video: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/HandsOnlyCPR/Hands-Only-CPR_UCM_440559_SubHomePage.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/HandsOnlyCPR/Hands-O... That's all you need to know as a lay-rescuer. And if you forget, the 911 operator will walk you through it. ( Or, if you'd rather: http://supersexycpr.com http://supersexycpr.com )
kayoone 14y ago
Wow, if that would have happened to me, i dont think i could ever do serious workout anymore. Are you allowed to still do sports without any risks ? After all suffering sudden cardiac arrest is extremely rare, but in most cases there is some underlying condition which can cause it in very rare cases, like an unnormal sized heart. I am 30 years old and generally pretty fit, but 2 months ago i fainted early in the morning. I was a bit sick, did work out the day before, had a really bad sleep with alot of sweating and felt totally devastated in the morning. Still (for whatever reason) i didnt drink anything and took my girlfriend to work and on the way back i was feeling extremely uncomfortable, got out of the car and blacked out. I woke up seconds later realizing i had fallen onto the street and had blasting back pains... Something like this happening was a total shock to me, i never had problems in this regard. Went to the hospital and a cardiologist and got everything checked and they said that all is totally fine, it was most probably a combination of dehydration+sickness+bad sleep etc. But still, in the weeks after it i felt some strange anxiety and checked my pulse alot, which i have never done before. I am still nervous when working out even if i havent had any problems since then, but it still makes me feel uneasy for some reason. Given that, if i would have suffered the same fate as this guy, i am sure i would have some serious anxiety issues. Good story mate, inspiring that you are so uninspired by it!
kayoone 14y ago
Freaking scary, makes one think twice to work out alone at home or going for a run in the woods alone...
spoiler 14y ago
Reading all the comments here is giving me a throbbing, phantom pain in my chest. D:
Tenoke 14y ago
>For me, it took losing everything to remember how lucky I am. So he did have an epiphany.
snambi 14y ago
nice story

250 points by joshbuckley 14y ago

Just don't take your luck for granted... it's about that time that it's stripped out from you.

I can certainly vouch for the suggestion that being grateful for the things you have (feeling lucky) is also a key component in my personal happiness quotient.

j_s 14y ago

Discussion of Dustin Curtis's perspective on this event: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4740540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4740540 A good reminder to make sure you have an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) nearby. (Make sure your company has one!) http://gregaed.org/aed-basics/ http://gregaed.org/aed-basics/

vxNsr 14y ago
I was under the impression that in most states it's required in a gym...

graue 14y ago

This reminds me a bit of Mary Rose Cook's story, "When I died": http://maryrosecook.com/post/when-i-died-2 http://maryrosecook.com/post/when-i-died-2

jemfinch 14y ago

I'm (only a little bit) sorry to be so pedantic, but I've grown weary of this modern misuse of death for hyperbolic effect. You didn't die. You weren't dead and you aren't now resurrected. You experienced a very serious medical event, and you almost died, but didn't. Even metaphorically, you didn't die: you're still around. Robert Pirsig can claim that Phaedrus died; you cannot, because you're still here. I don't know why this small untruth bothers me so, but it really does.

gertef 14y ago
Because death is really serious business. Misinformation hurts.
hnriot 14y ago
Also, it wood be nice if peepol proof readed there blogs a little more often two.
- rosser 14y ago
  And their comments.
  - jontas 14y ago
    I didn't notice at first, but based on the number of obvious typos in the parent, I'm pretty certain it was intentional.
    - rosser 14y ago
      They also edited their comment to make it glaringly, unmistakably obvious. When I commented, the their/there mistake was the only typo.
rosser 14y ago
While I get the point you're trying to make, and even somewhat agree with it, there are two definitions of "death" in play. The problem isn't hyperbole; it's simply one of equivocating between them. There's clinical death, which the author of TFA very likely did experience. If VF continues for anything longer than a few seconds, asystole frequently occurs. Among other things, asystole is definitive of "clinical death." On the other hand, there's death death. This is the one where we bury you and mourn you and so-on. Yes, they're very much not the same thing. Yes, the author is probably equivocating between them, at least a little. But no, his describing what he experienced as "death" is not hyperbolic — at least not according to the clinical definition.
- 14y ago

abecedarius 14y ago

The paramedics arrived and walked slowly down the length of the pool to the gym. This was procedure, they later told me, they didn't want to run and cause alarm. That shocks me a little.

abredow 14y ago
We talked about this in a CPR class once. The biggest reason paramedics don't run is to avoid injury, which would obviously impede their ability to help.
- adamzerner 14y ago
  That makes sense if the area around the pool is slippery. It's just that given the tremendous downside of risking the victim's life or brain damage, it seems that the paramedics wouldn't be risking much by hustling a little, rather than "walking slowly". Unless it was really slippery, or if they thought someone was going to flip out to the point where it seriously interfered with the CPR, taking your time doesn't seem like the best thing to do for the victim.
- hnriot 14y ago
  What has happened to humans??? millions of years evolving to a truly miraculous level of efficiency and agility and we still don't think that possibly moving a little quickly to someone who's heart has stopped is a good idea? Since there were paramedics (plural) it wouldn't impede anything if they ran, and it would most certainly increase the chances of saving someone. To me this is disgraceful, it sounds like OSHA got involved and made policy something that must surely be counter intuitive. Yes, I know the statistics of small risk- done often, but this is such a sad condition for our special to have reached when people carrying life saving equipment don't move a little faster to save someone.
  - angersock 14y ago
    There's a time to be an excited fool and leap blindly into action, and then there is a time be a professional and carefully move into place to do your work quietly and skillfully. You wouldn't happen to use a staging server, would you?

steven2012 14y ago

Somewhat related, but I remember watching MC Hammer on Oprah. Oprah was interviewing him about his bankruptcy, fall from grace, etc, and at one point, he said something to the effect of "Please, I don't want anyone to feel any sympathy towards me. Even after losing everything, my worst day is better than most people's best days. I'm still blessed." It's really easy, especially in Silicon Valley, to fall into the "Poor Little Rich Boy" syndrome as well. I'm currently trying to buy a >$1M house in the Bay Area (very common), and have gotten outbid by $100k+ time and time again. One of my friends said "I heard you're having problems trying to get a house." My response, thinking exactly of that MC Hammer interview, was "Not having money to afford a place is a problem. Being in the position to be outbid on $1M houses is a really lucky." I guess after reading the author's post, we in this industry should really feel blessed and know we're living a life that most people on this planet would think is a dream. It really puts things in perspective, and we hopefully shouldn't need a life-threatening event to come to this realization.

hello_newman 14y ago
Totally agree. So many people would kill to be in the positions some of us are in to pursue opportunities, chase our dreams, and be able to participate in the current zeitgeist and contribute to the world. If you can do that, you're already a success in my book.

jeromeparadis 14y ago

A more appropriate title would have been "What it's like to wake up after dying". Glad he's feeling great. He's mainly lucky someone who know CPR was around soon after his cardiac failure. That's the main reason why he defied statistics and it stacked odds in his favor. Otherwise, more than 4 minutes before intervention and you're almost guaranteed to be dead or at least brain damaged.

mcmatterson 14y ago

I lost my dad last week to this exact same event. My parents live in the country, and my elderly mother didn't have the training (or lack of panic) to attempt CPR. Although members of the local volunteer fire department were on site within 7 minutes with an AED, I'm actually quite comforted in the knowledge that there never really was any hope for him. One of the few nice things about vfib is that it's quick and painless, and the grim survival statistics mean that there wasn't really anything that could have been done differently in my dad's case.

davidw 14y ago
Sorry to hear that:-(

davycro 14y ago

the iphone app pulsepoint is worth mentioning here. its designed to alert people with cpr training when a cardiac arrest occurs near them. if more people use this app them more people should survive this type of accident

JohnBooty 14y ago

"If there is one lesson I took away from the experience it is not to “live life to the fullest” or “have no regrets”. It is to feel lucky. Feeling lucky means you are appreciating the things in your life that sometimes go unnoticed. It means you are achieving more than think you deserve. Feeling lucky requires a certain humility we often lose sight of." I came somewhat close to death due to something that happened with my heart once. Probably not as close as the author of the article, but definitely close enough to make one re-examine a few things. For me, in addition to feeling lucky and grateful, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that it made me much less patient when dealing with unnecessary unpleasantries. It's hard not to shout, "Really? I have to fill out this ridiculous form and then call so-and-so? Do you guys even KNOW how insanely short and fragile life is, and we're wasting it here talking about this ridiculous thing?" I deal with the necessary unpleasantries a little better now than I did before. When one of the pets makes a mess on the floor, I can't say I really enjoy cleaning it up now - but I still have to think about how wonderful and lucky it is that the pet and I are both here.

csomar 14y ago

The author experienced Clinical Death[1] and not permanent death. However, it's interesting now that we are close to singularity, death may be no longer death. What does it mean to die if I upload your brain and make another process of yourself? Is death related to the body or losing consciousness? Finally, dying is like sleeping. You are not around when you are dead. The author certainly got a shock from the things that happened to him and the thoughts of not existing any more and not experiencing death per se. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death

eli_gottlieb 14y ago
The sleep thing is a very bad argument on issues of death. I don't know about the rest of you, but I was always under the impression it's normal to drift in and out of various partial forms of consciousness immediately before, during, and after sleep. If dying was like sleeping, it would include the occasional moment of waking up to notice how comfortable your blanket is, roll over, and fall back adead. What does it mean to die if I upload your brain and make another process of yourself? Is death related to the body or losing consciousness? Well, that mostly depends on how you've defined "to die". I can easily imagine that the neo-Victorian Phyle will pass a law banning brain-copying after clinical death as an abomination, for instance. The thing about playing God is that you have to start writing your own rules.
krapp 14y ago
What does it mean to die if I upload your brain and make another process of yourself? Is death related to the body or losing consciousness? Assuming that something we will retroactively refer to as singlulary ever occurs, and that we are close to singluarity, and that it ever takes a form which leads to some kind of ubiquitous 'upload' of a brain model that somehow acts and reacts as a brain in a skull in meatspace would (and all of these qualifiers are debatable,) you still die. In the future the notion of what it means to be alive, and human, and dead, may be reinterpreted so that these models are considered to be, essentially, the same being as their original. But this redefinition would be semantics. Nothing frees you from the absolute and irrevocable nature of your death, in this or any other universe, ever. The post-singularity upload is still a copy, however good, and at this point the analogy of copying minds as software breaks down, because the mind isn't separate from the brain, and whether or not there's an entity on the wires which believes itself to be you, you are still no less dead.

danshapiro 14y ago

Recently took a CPR class in Seattle. Not for any particular reason, just because it seemed like a handy skill to pick up for two hours time invested. I learned a few interesting bits of trivia. --Seattle has the highest survival rate for heart stop events in the world at 56%. That's because of pioneering advances in EMT training, broad availability of AEDs, high percentage of people trained, etc. --When I asked for a point of comparison, he said Detroit was 4%. --AEDs don't actually bring you back to consciousness. They just make CPR more effective. (much more!) --Bad CPR is much better than no CPR. So much so that high end AEDs will actually teach you CPR with voice prompts, since it's better than sitting there. Some 911 operators will coach you through it as well. Even if your CPR is rusty, it's worth trying. --Modern CPR (for adults) no longer includes rescue breaths. Mouth-to-mouth was too much of a turnoff, and chest compressions alone are very effective given the response times of ambulances. --And most importantly - $40 and two hours can save a life! You can set yourself up here: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/CPR_UCM_001118_SubHomePage.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/CPR_UCM_001118_SubHo...

danielweber 14y ago
I heard somewhere that plain old CPR was very unlikely to help. Still probably better than nothing if someone is there with their heart not beating. Does this go along with your stats? EDIT: By sheer coincidence I found my stat about CPR while commenting on another thread. http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die/ideas/nexus/ http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2011/11/30/how-doctors-die...
- danshapiro 14y ago
  Plain old CPR by itself, with no ambulance on the way, is very unlikely to help. (That was another interesting tidbit - people almost never "wake up" while CPR is being administered). Ambulance + plain old CPR, however, is much more effective than Ambulance + yelling "ITS GOING TO BE OK!" or playing Angry Birds or whatever. I don't remember the stats on effectiveness of performing CPR while waiting for the ambulance vs. not, but they were persuasive.

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gyom 14y ago

The most interesting part of that post ties with something that Richard Dawkins likes to remind us : "We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia."

brokenparser 14y ago
I think it's a religious belief to think splooge has lots of tiny people in it (and therefore one should refrain from pleasing oneself), but it's really just unicellular organisms (which I think may outnumber all the grains of sand on Earth).
- maxerickson 14y ago
  Unsurprisingly, that isn't quite the angle uber-athiest Richard Dawkins is using: http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/91-to-live-at-all-is-miracle-enough http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/91-to-live-at-all-is-...
- gyom 14y ago
  He wasn't talking about homunculus, if that's what you mean, but I didn't imagine there could be confusion about what he meant. It's basically like thinking about the kids that could have had if you had descendants with person A instead of person B. There's nobody around to be disappointed for not being born, but those who got be alive are "lucky" in a certain sense of the word.

dzuc 14y ago

What exactly are the risk factors that lead up to this type of event?

teddyknox 14y ago
That's what I want to know, this is scary stuff...
Alex3917 14y ago
At age 21, prescription amphetamines are probably the biggest risk factor.
- Daniel_Newby 14y ago
  Prescription stimulants are remarkably safe in sensible doses—they make the heart beat faster but do little to destabilize it. The stimulant risk comes from cocaine, which directly interferes with electricity by jamming sodium channels shut.
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    They're relatively safe for any given individual, but overall they're still a huge factor in sudden cardiac arrest at this age.
    - Daniel_Newby 14y ago
      A few minutes with PubMed turns up no causal relationship. One study did find a sudden cardiac death odds ratio of ~2, but the dose response curve was flat suggesting lack of causality.
kayoone 14y ago
It is often related to hypertrophy of the heart muscle, at least this is a common cause in the sudden death of young athletes.

jcfrei 14y ago

wow, this is must be the first and only one of those cheesy stories that I can actually relate to. thanks.

funthree 14y ago

Death is permanent; you didn't die.

squozzer 14y ago

I have a bit of a cruel streak, but I always joke about pretending the flames of hell are licking my soul as I die and scaring the bejeezus out of anyone who might be in earshot of my passing.

anigbrowl 14y ago

This would have been just as interesting and clickworthy with a title like 'I had a massive heart attack at 21.' As it is, the story has nothing to do with the title at all.

louvicious 14y ago

Very insightful, great post.

hello_newman 14y ago

Svbtle never ceases to amaze me when I read an article. This was another example of a great article. I think the author brings up a fabulous point; be grateful for everything you have. It is so easy to get caught up in our lives and to envy others who have the newest this or the latest that. But to truly be grateful for what you have, material or otherwise, family, friends, doing things you love etc is so important. We often don't realize how lucky we are to just be alive, in good health, surrounded by people who love us. As long as you have that, you are in my opinion among the few lucky people on earth. Kudos on a great article.

rdl 14y ago

What state is this where a gym didn't have an AED? Also, where paramedics arrive onsite in 4.5 minutes. The intersection of those two states is a very small set.

martinced 14y ago

"Of those that do survive, more than half of them have brain damage." I've read a theory that if as soon as someone as heart attack you put ice on his head you lower the risk of permanent brain damage. If I'm not mistaken there's been a doctor / hospital / ambulances allowing to test this theory in the U.S. (don't remember which one) and they had apparently statistically significant better results when ambulancers did immediately put the head in ice. Our brain is one heck of a CPU and when the blood doesn't cool it it starts melting fast apparently : ( Lowering temp to 32 deg certainly helped but apparently every second counts: the faster you put the head in ice, the lower the brain damage. So while someone is trying to do CPR, someone else should go fetch lots of ice. Interesting "feeling lucky to have a great life that I just want to continue to live". Welcome back!

ams6110 14y ago
That would be 32 C I guess... certainly they didn't freeze him...
ramchip 14y ago
Cells require less oxygen at lower temperatures (metabolism slows down), so a cold brain could cope better with lower blood oxygen levels.

achivetta 14y ago

Go watch this video: http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/HandsOnlyCPR/Hands-Only-CPR_UCM_440559_SubHomePage.jsp http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/CPRAndECC/HandsOnlyCPR/Hands-O... That's all you need to know as a lay-rescuer. And if you forget, the 911 operator will walk you through it. ( Or, if you'd rather: http://supersexycpr.com http://supersexycpr.com )

kayoone 14y ago

Wow, if that would have happened to me, i dont think i could ever do serious workout anymore. Are you allowed to still do sports without any risks ? After all suffering sudden cardiac arrest is extremely rare, but in most cases there is some underlying condition which can cause it in very rare cases, like an unnormal sized heart. I am 30 years old and generally pretty fit, but 2 months ago i fainted early in the morning. I was a bit sick, did work out the day before, had a really bad sleep with alot of sweating and felt totally devastated in the morning. Still (for whatever reason) i didnt drink anything and took my girlfriend to work and on the way back i was feeling extremely uncomfortable, got out of the car and blacked out. I woke up seconds later realizing i had fallen onto the street and had blasting back pains... Something like this happening was a total shock to me, i never had problems in this regard. Went to the hospital and a cardiologist and got everything checked and they said that all is totally fine, it was most probably a combination of dehydration+sickness+bad sleep etc. But still, in the weeks after it i felt some strange anxiety and checked my pulse alot, which i have never done before. I am still nervous when working out even if i havent had any problems since then, but it still makes me feel uneasy for some reason. Given that, if i would have suffered the same fate as this guy, i am sure i would have some serious anxiety issues. Good story mate, inspiring that you are so uninspired by it!

kayoone 14y ago

Freaking scary, makes one think twice to work out alone at home or going for a run in the woods alone...

spoiler 14y ago

Reading all the comments here is giving me a throbbing, phantom pain in my chest. D:

Tenoke 14y ago

>For me, it took losing everything to remember how lucky I am. So he did have an epiphany.

snambi 14y ago

nice story