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Dr. Mary Gallagher and her husband were on their way to celebrate an anniversary in Puerto Rico, but before the plane could take off, her husband began to show signs that he was in cardiac arrest. |
Although standard procedure would have been to take him to the nearest hospital, Gallagher forced the ambulance to take him to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital due to the fact she knew that they had a new treatment plan for treating those in cardiac arrest.
At most hospitals, when a patient enters cardiac arrest, the treatment is to wait and hope for the best. However, at the University of Pennsylvania, treatment is an IV treatment of cold saline that reduces the body temperature of the patient.
While 90 percent of people in cardiac arrest end up dying, Dietrich Gallagher survived given the fact that the saline was administered. It is not known for sure why the cold solution aids the body in recovering from cardiac arrest, although it has been suspected for years that therapeutic hypothermia can help the body recover.
Many scientists believe that the cold solution will help reduce oxygen needed by the body and it slows down the chemical cascade of problems that occur when oxygen is not properly circulated due to the heart temporarily stopping.
Despite the positive evidence, only 34 percent of critical care physicians, and 16 percent of ER doctors have ever attempt to try to treat a cardiac arrest patient with induced hypothermia, which may be due to the fact that less than 300 hospitals out of 6,000 nationwide have the equipment needed for this treatment.
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