JACC

Cold did the thing cold sometimes does: it slowed the body's oxygen demand faster than the lack of oxygen could kill it. Crews were told not to rewarm him until a hospital could take over, then ran CPR for roughly 90 minutes against a heart that was barely flickering.

The clinical maxim in the thread — "you're not dead until you're warm and dead" — turned into a harder question: how many people died because a rescuer assumed it was too late to try?

An 8-year-old fell through ice and stayed submerged for roughly 2.5 hours, then received about 90 minutes of CPR. The cold that should have killed him is what saved his brain — it slowed his metabolism faster than oxygen starvation could destroy it.

The thread refused the fairy tale. By day 59 he was discharged; at 6 months he could give short commands, stand, and ride a tricycle — remarkable, and a long way from where an 8-year-old starts. 'Survival here being, of course, not a black-and-white thing.'