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Doctors have begun a clinical trial to test whether chilling patients’ bodies down to 10–15 °Celsius from their normal temp of 37 °C using a procedure called suspended animation can give surgeons time to intervene in otherwise fatal traumas, New Scientist reports.
The experiment involves patients who have experienced acute trauma—such as a gunshot or stab wound and have suffered cardiac arrest. The procedure, formally called EPR or emergency preservation and resuscitation, involves pumping an extremely cold salt solution into the patient’s arteries, lowering her body temperature and causing the body and brain functions to slow or completely stop. This idea is that this will buy surgeons time to operate and fix the injuries caused by the trauma. The patients are then warmed and resuscitated after surgery.
A least one patient has undergone the treatment, and administering it is “a little surreal,” Samuel Tisherman of the ...
