Back From The Dead

How the strange new science of ‘suspended animation’ will save lives.

- Rene Ebersole

ONE AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY 2011, Kelly Dwyer strapped on snowshoes and set out to hike a beaver pond trail near her home in Hooksett, New Hampshire. Hours later, the 46-year-old teacher hadn’t returned home. Her husband, David, was worried. Grabbing his cellphone and a flashlight, he told their two daughters he was going to look for Mom. As he made his way toward the pond, he called out for Kelly. That’s when he heard the moans.

Running toward them, David phoned Laura, 14, and told her to call 911. His flashlight beam soon settled on Kelly, submerged up to her chest in a hole in the ice. As David clutched her from behind to keep her head above water, Kelly slumped into unconsciousness. By the time rescue crews arrived, her body temperature was in the 20s Celsius. Before she could reach the ambulance, her heart stopped. The crews attempted CPR—a process doctors continued for three hours at a hospital nearby. They warmed her frigid body. Nothing.Even defibrillation wouldn’t restart her heart. David assumed he’d lost her for good.

But Kelly’s life wasn’t over. A doctor rushed her to the nearby Catholic Medical Center, where a new team hooked her up to a cardiac bypass machine that more aggressively warmed, filtered and oxygenated her blood and rapidly circulated it through her body. Finally Kelly’s temperature crept back up. After she’d spent five hours medically dead, doctors turned off the machine and her heart began beating again.

Incredibly, Kelly Dwyer walked out of the hospital two weeks later with only minor nerve damage to her hands.