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 WASHINGTON (AP) - For 24 hours, Hamilton Loeb lay unconscious inside a cold blue suit that put his brain on ice. Four times, his heart had stopped beating and he was shocked back to life. Then doctors essentially refrigerated him, in a bid to avert the brain damage that too often cripples survivors of cardiac arrest.
Today, the 53-year-old Washington lawyer is back to normal, and he credits the cold with protecting his brain.
Chilling the sick may sound counterintuitive, but research shows mild hypothermia — cooling the body just a few degrees — can significantly improve the odds of a full recovery after cardiac arrest. Now scientists are trying to prove whether a cool-down can protect against some of the damage from other disorders, too:
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