Doctors brought a tourist back to life, who died in the intensive care unit and spent 45 minutes without signs of life. At the same time, doctors gave him artificial respiration and connected him to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) apparatus. The Seattle Times writes about it.
45-year-old Michael Knapinski and his friends went hiking in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state. At some point, he and his friends parted ways, and the weather began to deteriorate. When, after a while, Knapinski did not return to the appointed place, his friends reported the man missing.
Rescuers began looking for the American that evening and found him unconscious a mile from the ice bridge over the Nisqually River. It turned out that he fell during a blizzard. Knapinski was taken to the hospital, but he died in intensive care. However, the doctors believed that he could be saved, and after 45 minutes of their efforts, the man returned to life.
“He came back from the dead. (…) Maybe not quite right from a medical point of view, but his heart didn’t beat for more than 45 minutes. It’s amazing,” said Dr. Saman Arbaby, medical director of the surgical intensive care unit in Harborview. Knapinski himself thanked the medical team and said that the experience strengthened his decision to volunteer as a builder of foster homes.