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Italian boy survives being trapped underwater for 42 minutes
- azinman2 11y agoUnbelievable. Typically an oxygen starved brain can be permanently destroyed in minutes, like alone more than half an hour. Just shows that what we think are limits to human capacity are more just experienced we've had until now. Very inspiring.
- __z 11y agoI suspect the boy was saved by the mammalian diving reflex. It is what allows whales to hold their breath for so long. It exists in a much weaker form in humans especially young ones. It kicks in when the face is submerged in cold water. 40 minutes is certainly at the high end but this isnt unprecedented http://www.today.com/id/36190954/ns/today-today_news/t/miracle-boy-ok-after-minutes-underwater/ http://www.today.com/id/36190954/ns/today-today_news/t/mirac... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex
- JshWright 11y agoIt's fairly well known that submersion in cold water can lead to recoveries after periods of time far longer than would be expected in other circumstances.
- zamalek 11y agoBrain death actually occurs at the time of resuscitation. As it wakes individual cells kill themselves as a result of a kind of "self check." If you cool the brain before resuscitation you can hopefully delay the self check to the point where the cells are correctly oxygenated and healthy when it happens. Dying somewhere cold cools your brain, giving you a better chance when you are resuscitated.
- garblegarble 11y agoThat's fascinating, could you point me somewhere I can read more? I'd always assumed something in the cells was decaying without oxygen preventing them from functioning again. Is it some sort of reaction byproduct that normally is part of a chain but the lack of oxygen breaks the chain and makes some other reaction occur?
- teraflop 11y agoThe medical term is "reperfusion injury". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reperfusion_injury http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reperfusion_injury
- ceejayoz 11y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_temperature_management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_temperature_management and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Sun_medical_device http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Sun_medical_device have some details.
- waffl 11y agoThis reminds me of a medical technique that was going into trials I read about on HN last year, I can't find the conversation link but this article in the nytimes is speaking to the same topic: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/health/a-chilling-medical-trial.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/health/a-chilling-medical-...
- nicolewhite 11y agoAt one point the article claims he fell into the canal, then a couple sentences later says he jumped in willingly. Which is it?
- manarth 11y ago"An Italian boy who fell into a canal…" "The 14-year-old, who is said to have jumped off a bridge in Cuggiono…" It sounds very much like 'journalist-speak'. When they start with "He fell into a canal", they're establishing the boy's innocence - i.e. he wasn't trying to kill himself, wasn't up to anything dodgy, etc. They're also establishing plausible deniability in the event of a libel suit. When they add 'who is said to have jumped off a bridge", they're probably adding conjecture from bystanders, but holding back from saying this as fact, perhaps because of the risk of a libel lawsuit (maybe it's a criminal act due to a byelaw forbidding jumping from that bridge), perhaps because they haven't had enough confirmation to say confidently that he chose to jump - they just know he ended up in the water. So they end up beginning with "He fell into the canal", followed by the reports they've had from one or more witnesses "He is said to have jumped".
- sukilot 11y agoThat's a long way of saying they were being careful with language to avoid making incorrect statements.
- jwise0 11y agoThere's a reason why they say that "you're not dead until you're warm and dead"! The case of Anna Bågenholm [1] is similarly fascinating. She was in cold meltwater for 80 minutes before being pulled out, and made a ~full recovery. Her core temperature was around 56 degrees when they began resuscitation. It is truly amazing how effective hypothermia is at preserving bodily function! [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Bågenholm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Bågenholm
- jnardiello 11y agoFor the convenience of non-US commenters/readers: that's 13 C.
- unicornporn 11y agoAnd for those who don't regularly swim in open water, that's f*g cold.
- josu 11y agoThat was her body temperature, not the water's temperature.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mokus 11y agoIndeed. The water would be even colder. After 80 minutes, though, how much difference is there? Still some, I'm sure, but water is really good at conducting heat.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Shivetya 11y agohaving been in the water below a dam its amazing just how cold it can be. The best part is, watching a friend drop an expensive knife in less than four feet of water and unable to retrieve it cause of the cold. Fortunately a few young kids came wading down the same river in this water and when they asked my friend what was wrong he pointed to the knife and the one kid simply went under and got it. and to my point, perhaps younger people have better ability to not suffer the ill effects of such temperatures? I am sure many can remember being in snow or sweltering hot weather where adults all went indoors or such. Is it ignorance or something physical?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mslate 11y agoWhy the fuck is this on the front page of hacker news.
- abstractbill 11y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- DanBC 11y agoJust for interest: why shouldn't be on the front page? Why do you think this is off topic? And what should? What do you think is on-topic?
- rndn 11y agoPerhaps he or she doesn't know about cryonics and that people are seriously working towards it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics
- mmahemoff 11y agoI'm surprised you're surprised. A lot of people associate HN with software and startups. They don't realise its scope is a bit broader.
- DanBC 11y agoNothing in my comment indicates surprise.
- perfTerm 11y agoBecause flashes of insight and great ideas often come from reading articles about topics outside of our individual fields. Also, hacker news is primarily for entrepreneurs and hackers (not in the criminal sense of the word) which means besides the small common threads like technology and business, we come from all walks of life and fields.
- vincentbarr 11y ago
- louwrentius 11y agoIt seems that the cold water also contributed to his survival. He only had to lose a lower leg, no brain damage. This is always the question: very nice you are able to survive x y or z, but in what condition do you get out of it: like a vegetable or like a human being?
- hliyan 11y agoWasn't this also a factor: "The team also used a technique called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) to extract oxygen-deprived blood, warm it up and add oxygen, before pumping it back into the body, The Times reported. After 10 days of using the technique, which mimics the function of the heart, while Michael was in an induced coma, he survived."
- JshWright 11y agoSure, but it's the fact that he was rapidly cooled in the first place that made ECMO an option at all. You can't just take someone who has been dead for 40 minutes and slap 'em on an ECMO machine...
- torsday 11y agoSome interesting drowning facts: - Clean and cold water is ideal: pneumonia and metabolism. - If you revive a drowned person, insist they go to the hospital: CPR can push the fluid in their lungs into their blood, only to return later on, drowning them all the same, "parking lot drowning." - Quite often, water doesn't enter their lungs as their vocal cords spasm. ~ Paramedic in another life
- kazinator 11y agoYou mean clean, cold water is ideal for avoiding the bacterial infection (e.g. streptococcus pneumoniae) that causes pneumonia?
- chimmychonga 11y agoAQUAMAN!
- kleer001 11y agono love for the Justice League loser?
- rictic 11y agoSimple jokes are almost always voted down. Even when they're funny, they're not the target tone of the site. It's not personal, it's just an editorial and community-direction choice.
- mitchi 11y agoI had noticed everyone had the same typical serious programmer personality here. That's why I enjoy reddit a lot more because it's not like that 100% of the time.
- eueueu 11y agodon't forget these startup guys are literally saving the world one webapp at a time. It's serious stuff.
- kleer001 11y agofair enough, that's been my experience
- legohead 11y agoI wonder why they even tried CPR or a defibrillator. They spent 42 minutes rescuing someone who was underwater, and then decided to try and revive him? Maybe there are details left out, like he was not fully submerged the entire time...
- JshWright 11y agoIt's a kid... you try. Worked a 3 year old a couple weeks ago with an unknown downtime in a pool (up to 15 minutes). He was dead from the outset (initial rhythm was asystole), and he stayed dead (much warmer water in this case), but you still try... This is especially true for cold-water drownings. Downtimes even longer than 42 minutes with full recoveries are not unheard of. You're not dead until you're warm and dead.
- sukilot 11y agoI'd hope you'd try for an adult too. But anyway, thank you for your life-saving service.
- JshWright 11y agoThe window for 'trying' is longer for kids (that's based on more than just emotion though... kids are a lot more resilient).
- jnardiello 11y agoDon't you have protocols for this? Is it entirely up to individual preparation for how long (and how) you 'try'?
- JshWright 11y agoIt's a bit of both... I have an 'obvious death' protocol that can apply if someone is, well... obviously dead. If they are not obviously dead, and do not have a DNR (or a 'MOLST' in New York) then we'll begin resuscitative efforts (using either ACLS[1] or PALS[2] guidelines, as appropriate). If the patient's heart has any sort of electrical activity going on, we'll generally spend 15-20 minutes trying to get it working properly again before calling a medical control physician to get permission to stop efforts and pronounce death. If there is no electrical activity, then we'll go through a couple 'rounds' of ACLS, and it there is no response, we'll just pronounce them. Very rarely do we transport an adult in cardiac arrest. CPR in a moving ambulance is very difficult to perform adequately, and in most cases we would just be bringing them to a facility that would be providing the same level of care that we are in the field (albeit with more hands available to help, but the tradeoff in time and poor quality CPR isn't worth it). The only exception to this are cases of traumatic arrests. If something is physically broken, no amount of CPR, drugs, or electricity are going to help, and their only hope is bright lights and cold steel (in a surgeon's hand). Needless to say, the survival rates for out of hospital traumatic arrests are _vanishingly_ small. Kids are different though... They're easier to move, and easier to do CPR on. This means in most cases a pediatric arrest is a 'scoop and run', with any interventions being performed on the way in. This is in part because the resiliency of kids means they are a _little_ more tolerant of the time, and scene's with dead kids tend to be extremely chaotic. It can be very difficult to concentrate with an (understandably) distraught parent yelling at you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_cardiac_life_support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_cardiac_life_support [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pediatric_advanced_life_support https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pediatric_advanced_life_suppor...
- pinky1417 11y agoDid anyone else catch the doctor mentioning that the boy recently asked for a mojito? It's a bit surprising that a 14 year old would ask for alcohol in a country where the drinking age is 18. But hey, it's Italy, perhaps there significantly more relaxed about kids drinking than Americans like me!
- arthens 11y agoItalian here, and yes Italy is way more relaxed about drinking than the USA. I can't speak for the whole country, but where I'm from underage drinking is not really considered a big deal. Frowned upon yes, but that's about it.
- jnardiello 11y agoYes, the relationship of italians with alcohol is significantly different than the one in english-speaking countries. Much more "sane" and relaxed, I'd dare to say. Alcohol isn't a social problem and it's tolerated for young people to drink (or to smoke weed) despite not being yet 18 - at least in Milan.
- bla2 11y agoI think that's probably true for most of Europe.
- yuchi 11y ago(Italian too here) Actually alcohol IS a social problem, but in a way smaller size than in countries who had Prohibition. Young americans, australians and brits usually once in Italian land set their desire to drink free, causing a lot of problems (personal multiple experiences).
- mariuolo 11y agoI wonder, though, if it was alcohol that prompted him to jump in the water in the first place. He wouldn't be the first drunk who decided to do something stupid. I recall a British tourist who died in Venice after thinking it was a good idea to take a swim in the lagoon a few years back.
- tedunangst 11y agoWhy is there a picture of some random dude with the caption "the teenager jumped off a bridge in Milan"? I'm assuming he didn't also age 30 years in the process.
- finalight 11y agowell, all i can say is praise the lord for that
- jmkni 11y agoOff topic, but I find it amusing that the title says, "Italian boy...", the image caption says, "The teenager..." and then the photo is of a middle aged man.
- tombozi 11y agoSo if I understand this correctly, we will soon be able to put people into 'hibernation mode' by first cooling down their body temperature?