"Back From Dead"

OK. The resuscitation team follows the currently recommended American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines on Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS),* based on the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation’s 2005 International Consensus on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care Science with Treatment Recommendations (CoSTR),** the patient survives and this isn’t a story about the science being right. Colour me surprised.

Just in case you’re wondering here is the relevant section of the AHA guidelines on resuscitation in pregnancy. I’ve removed the inline reference numbers to improve readability. The italics are in the original.

Emergency Hysterotomy (Cesarean Delivery) for the Pregnant Woman in Cardiac Arrest

Maternal Cardiac Arrest Not Immediately Reversed by BLS and ACLS

The resuscitation team leader should consider the need for an emergency hysterotomy (cesarean delivery) protocol as soon as a pregnant woman develops cardiac arrest. The best survival rate for infants >24 to 25 weeks in gestation occurs when the delivery of the infant occurs no more than 5 minutes after the mother’s heart stops beating. This typically requires that the provider begin the hysterotomy about 4 minutes after cardiac arrest.

Emergency hysterotomy is an aggressive procedure. It may seem counterintuitive given that the key to salvage of a potentially viable infant is resuscitation of the mother. But the mother cannot be resuscitated until venous return and aortic output are restored. Delivery of the baby empties the uterus, relieving both the venous obstruction and the aortic compression. The hysterotomy also allows access to the infant so that newborn resuscitation can begin. The critical point to remember is that you will lose both mother and infant if you cannot restore blood flow to the mother’s heart. Note that 4 to 5 minutes is the maximum time rescuers will have to determine if the arrest can be reversed by BLS and ACLS interventions. The rescue team is not required to wait for this time to elapse before initiating emergency hysterotomy. Recent reports document long intervals between an urgent decision for hysterotomy and actual delivery of the infant, far exceeding the obstetrical guideline of 30 minutes.

Establishment of IV access and an advanced airway typically requires several minutes. In most cases the actual cesarean delivery cannot proceed until after administration of IV medications and endotracheal intubation. Resuscitation team leaders should activate the protocol for an emergency cesarean delivery as soon as cardiac arrest is identified in the pregnant woman. By the time the team leader is poised to deliver the baby, IV access has been established, initial medications have been administered, an advanced airway is in place, and the immediate reversibility of the cardiac arrest has been determined.
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*Either accidentally or by design. I hope it’s by design but it doesn’t sound that way unfortunately.

**The next CoSTR document is being released in October next year with new guidelines coming a month or so after that. Don’t expect any big changes.
 
Well, it's just like that old funny man God, to save someone just to piss on them later...

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/22/c...nstorfer-christmas-miracle-reco/?ncid=webmail

Dad lost his job because he spent so much time with wife and baby that God whimsically decided to pluck from the jaws of death ...

But here is the biggest blow of all:

The only sign that either older brother felt left out amid the fuss about Coltyn was when producers for "Oprah" didn't invite them to accompany their parents and baby brother to Chicago in February to tape a segment for the show.
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Oh nos !:jaw-dropp
 
. . . Oh . . . I forgot what I was going to say because I'm still stuck thinking about RayG having 11 children. Eleven children. And yet - it seems - he has still retained some sanity.

Just thinking of how many sleep deprived nights that adds up to . . .

Julia
 
I still don't see what's so miraculous. It is unusual for someone to be resuscitated after 4 mins of clinical death, but not unheard of, even without special measures or cooling.

It's no wonder there are so many believers in the paranormal if all it takes is for a doctor or scientist to say they don't have an explanation for something.

I suppose it's folklorish superstition - if your plumber can't explain why your boiler is playing up, or the electrician can't explain why your TV's on the blink, it must be gremlins...
 
dlorde said:
I still don't see what's so miraculous. It is unusual for someone to be resuscitated after 4 mins of clinical death, but not unheard of, even without special measures or cooling.
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You seem to be unaware that the baby also appeared to be dead:

"Martin said it became clear that Hermanstorfer was not responding to any revival efforts after several minutes, so the team turned its focus to trying to save the baby by performing a Caesarean section without anesthetic. That's when doctors were hit with more bad news.

"When I delivered [the baby], he was limp, completely lifeless," Martin said.

"Then something happened that Martin still has trouble explaining.

"As soon as I delivered the baby, the mother's heartbeat came back," Martin said. "Somewhere between four and five minutes she had been without heart rate and had stopped breathing a minute or two prior to her heart stopping."
 
Rodney said:
You seem to be unaware that the baby also appeared to be dead....
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Nope - the baby had a slow heart rate.
Dr. Martin: "The baby was, it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate."


I don't believe a slow heart rate qualifies as death.
 
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Rodney said:
You seem to be unaware that the baby also appeared to be dead
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No, I am well aware that the baby was described as appearing 'limp and completely lifeless'. But I am also well aware that it is not unusual for babies that appear to be 'limp and completely lifeless' to be crying lustily soon after.

If you could explain exactly why you find this story to be so astonishing, perhaps I'd understand why you seem so exercised about it. AFAICS, medically it's interesting, but no more.
 
Ethan Thane Athen said:
Nope - the baby had a slow heart rate.
Dr. Martin: "The baby was, it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate."


I don't believe a slow heart rate qualifies as death.
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I also note that the quote you supplied has Dr Martin saying 'lifeless' where the above quote has 'with a very slow heart rate'. Already we have either misquoting or a Dr telling the story slightly differently each time they're asked. Either way it shows you should not pay too much attention to the specific terminology used.

So, where does that leave us? Mother in labour shows pre-arrest signs, then arrests, team cut baby out and, not surprisingly given the state of the mother, it needs some attention but was not dead and the doctors treat it (I believe the father says 'Then the doctors did something and boom the baby was fine' - possibly an injection of some sort) and then, stress of labour removed, artery freed up, resuscitation efforts take effect or some combination of all three or more factors and the mother recovers.

Nice story, but if you see anything in this other than doctors doing their job but not able to state exactly which out of several possible combinations of causes definitely was the exact reason for the events then you must live in a dreamworld with pixies around every corner. You must also give equal credence to some supernatural cause for the arrest in the first place so which was it: supernatural agency causes arrest, doctors fix; supernatural agency causes event and fixes it (what possible purpose?); natural cause of event and supernatural agency fixes; or all natural? I know where my money is.

If the doctor had been able to spot damage to an artery and had said 'Basically the baby was leaning on an artery, that caused the mother difficulty which in turn restricted oxygen flow to the baby but removing the baby allowed us to relieve that pressure so mom recovered and we could then get at the baby to inject with adrenalin and that speeded its heart back up to normal'* would you actually give the medical team some credit or would you persist in seeing a supernatural influence?

*As should be clear, I am not a medical man so this is by no means put forward as an accurate, blow by blow account but should rather give a flavour of likely events as pieced together from the accounts above. You could just as easily replace the first phrase with 'We believe the mom reacted badly to medication'. Basically this has only become 'paranormal' because the doctor has the intellectual honesty to say it could be several things but they can't be definite what and she's just glad it all worked out ok. Seriously Rodney, a burnt piece of toast that vaguely resembles Jesus / Lemmy is more compelling evidence of the supernatural than this.
 
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Ethan Thane Athen said:
Nope - the baby had a slow heart rate.
Dr. Martin: "The baby was, it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate."


I don't believe a slow heart rate qualifies as death.
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No, but that's not what Dr. Martin told ABC News: "When I delivered [the baby], he was limp, completely lifeless," Martin said. See http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/exclusive-christmas-miracle-mom-baby-dead-labor-revived/story?id=9446946

So where did you get the quote: "it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate"?
 
Rodney said:
No, but that's not what Dr. Martin told ABC News: "When I delivered [the baby], he was limp, completely lifeless," Martin said. See http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/exclusive-christmas-miracle-mom-baby-dead-labor-revived/story?id=9446946

So where did you get the quote: "it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate"?
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So many posts later Rodney and still you've not answered the why for posting this. C'mon admit it out loud. You're convinced this was a Godly intervention.
 
Rodney said:
although I've still never heard of another case where the mother had no heart rate for several minutes, the baby had only a faint heart rate, and yet both recovered.
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What is the source of the statistics you have been looking at?
 
Rodney said:
No, but that's not what Dr. Martin told ABC News: "When I delivered [the baby], he was limp, completely lifeless," Martin said. See http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/exclusive-christmas-miracle-mom-baby-dead-labor-revived/story?id=9446946

So where did you get the quote: "it was basically limp, with a very slow heart rate"?
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You should listen to what she actually says instead of relying on the paraphrasing done by whoever wrote the article. It's at around the 5:30 mark. the expression she actually uses is "limp and appeared completely lifeless".
 
Steve001 said:
So many posts later Rodney and still you've not answered the why for posting this. C'mon admit it out loud. You're convinced this was a Godly intervention.
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I wouldn't use the word "convinced", but again, I've never heard of a story like this one.
 
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