Scientists replace blood with icy solution to save lives in danger

For the first time ever, a trial in the United States succeeded in placing humans in suspended animation. The approach involves cooling people with catastrophic injuries to allow for additional time to save their lives.

The technique, called emergency preservation and resuscitation (EPR), is being applied at the University of Maryland Medical Centre in Baltimore to patients who arrive in cardiac arrest from an acute trauma like a gunshot or stab wound. In these situations there are just minutes left to operate, with little chance of survival, as the heart of the patient is likely not beating and they lost over a half of their blood.

EPR works by quickly cooling a person in such a condition to somewhere between 10 to 15°C (from the normal body temp of 37 degrees). Their blood is also changed out completely to ice-cold saline. As their brain activity discontinues, they are unplugged from the system that's been cooling them and moved into surgery.

Doctors have 2 hours to work on the injuries before a person in this state of suspended animation is warmed up, with their heart restarted.

Without blood carrying oxygen to the cells in our body, the brain would only be alive for 5 minutes before major damage. Cooling the body and brain's temperatures brings all cell chemical reactions to a near-stop, requiring less oxygen.

The technique was previously successful in studies with dogs and

pigs suffering acute traumas. They were brought back to life after being cooled for 3 hours.