Meeting new people when I came to Penn State was fun to do especially when I learned what my friends intended on majoring in. One of my very best friends plans to become a pediatric surgeon and that is something that simply amazes me. I thought about how that would be a very stressful occupation that has its pros and cons. It has to be very tricky to go into a surgery knowing that you only have so much time to save a life and if you run out of time you
could potentially kill a person. This was very frightening until I came across a new science that is giving surgeons more time to work without as many risks to the patient. It is called putting a patient in suspended animation.
In the process of suspended animation, a patients body is practically frozen almost to death. They do this by replacing their blood with a solution that cools the body rapidly. By replacing the blood, not only do they cool the body much faster, but they also eliminate the chance of losing the patient due to blood loss. A person can not survive without blood because it carries the oxygen that the cells need to survive but when the body is at a frozen state the cells stop working and do not need the oxygen to function. The salt water solution that is pumped through the body stimulates the body and give the surgeons more time to work on serious injuries or health issues.
Before this discovery, when people would have major health complications, they would be put on ice. Being surrounded by ice stimulated the body in order to save the brain from major damage. The brain damage would come from it not getting enough oxygen because the blood is going elsewhere in the body and either exiting the body or getting stopped there. Irreversible brain damage will start to begin within 5 minutes when the brain is deprived of oxygen. This is why a body is put on ice after certain medical emergencies; to save the brain. Now that we have suspended animation we are able to preserve the brain for longer periods of time because it no longer needs oxygen when it is working.
Suspended animation was found when Dr. Peter Rhee was asked by the military to “find a way
of preserving wounded victims before they reached the hospital”. With what he came up with trauma victims of all sorts will be given more time to receive the proper treatment for their condition.
Doctors performed the first suspended animation trial that was put to the test in May of 2014, but I could not find any information on whether the trial worked or not. I did find that they have to perform numerous trials on humans before it becomes practiced in hospitals. I think that the trials will/should be performed on those who are in a life or death situation. I believe that those in a situation like we talked about the other day when we talked about the cancer treatments and who should receive them. I believe that those people who have no other option, like the kids with cancer from class, should receive the treatments.
This makes me think about what we could do now that we have brought the long fictional idea from Star Wars to reality. It makes me wonder how long we can preserve a person, if we can suspend their life and bring them back at any time. Can we choose when we want to be alive and when we don’t? If a person has numerous failing organs, can we preserve them until we have the donor organs needed to save their life? Can we escape death with what we call suspended animation?
The possibilities are endless and I am sure that science will answer my questions in the future once the science of suspended animation furthers in research.