Submerged under water for 20 minutes, boy wakes from coma

[kickingfrog]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/National/home

 

 

Submerged under water for 20 minutes, boy wakes from coma

Manitoba family's faith tested during 13-day coma, but prospect for recovery called 'remarkable'

Article Video Comments (25) PATRICK WHITE

 

From Friday's Globe and Mail

 

April 23, 2009 at 9:11 PM EDT

 

WINNIPEG — Growing up near the snaking Whitemud River, 8-year-old Samuel Gross embraced baseball, soccer and books.

 

But he never learned to swim.

 

On April 9, the ice-strewn waters around his home on the Westroc Hutterite colony, about 120 kilometres west of Winnipeg, were days away from cresting when the shy third-grader went for a walk with friends along the stream bank.

 

Because he can't remember what happened next, the boy doesn't understand why he's now being called a medical miracle. Underwater for 20 minutes, he was rushed to hospital. Doctors feared he would never recover.

 

 

Samuel Gross, 8, is shown in this family handout photo. The Manitoba boy, who has been in a coma since flood waters sucked him into a culvert two weeks ago, has opened his eyes, according to Westroc Hutterite Colony member Ben Gross. (The Canadian Press)

 

Videos

00:00:00.000

CTV Winnipeg: The little boy who nearly drowned

 

He was under water for several minutes and his family feared the worst, but after a 13-day coma Samuel Gross woke up

 

Play Video

 

On Wednesday, after 13 days in a coma, he woke up and recited his father's cellphone number. The sequence of events that led to his awakening tested the limits of medicine along with his family's faith.

 

Friends say Sam slipped off a snowbank and toward the raging maw of a swollen culvert. They ran to pull him out. They grabbed onto him. As they started pulling, their grip loosened and the current carried him away.

 

As soon as he heard, Robert Gross, Sam's father, ran to the scene. He looked at the culvert and his heart sank. “It had a lot of suction there,” he said Thursday, in a slight German lilt. “Enough to get swept away.”

 

For 20 agonizing minutes, Mr. Gross and many of the 90 other residents of the Westroc colony scoured the waters around the culvert. “It was done with a heavy heart,” Mr. Gross said. “He was so very helpless.”

 

When the human body hits such cold water, holding one's breath becomes nearly impossible, said Gordon Giesbrecht, professor of thermophysiology at the University of Manitoba. In cold-water submersions, Dr. Giesbrecht has found the maximum he can hold his breath is 13 seconds.

 

“It would be terrifying for a short period,” he said. “Then you'd breathe water in and that would be it.”

 

Somewhat counter-intuitively, breathing the chilly water can also save the brain, the organ most at risk during drowning. The body's impulse to respire is so strong that the lungs will continue breathing water in and out well after submerging. Studies on canines have found that mammals can continue breathing water for up to four minutes. Circulating that icy water through the lungs, Dr. Giesbrecht has found, cools the brain and reduces the body's core temperature.

 

In warm weather, if someone were to stay submerged in an outdoor pool for more than four minutes, “they will either be dead or have severe irreversible brain damage,” Dr. Giesbrecht said. “But the cooling of the brain increases the time you can go without oxygen. The tissue, as it gets colder, requires less oxygen.”

 

When a cousin finally pulled young Sam from the icy waters, the boy appeared blue. “His hood was over his face,” said Julie Gross. “I pulled it back and my first impression was he died already.”

 

Some colony members started CPR and called authorities for help.

 

Due to floods throughout the province, the Manitoba government had stationed an Alberta helicopter equipped with medical staff at the Winnipeg airport. It touched down more than half an hour later. The crew continued CPR as they whisked the chilled, unresponsive boy to Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg.

 

At the hospital, Sam's heart finally started beating on its own after two hours of CPR. Doctors kept his body chilled for another two days to protect the brain from inflammation before gradually warming him up over a period of 24 hours.

 

Doctors had another problem to contend with. Stomach contents had flowed freely into the lungs, blocking off oxygen to the heart. With the help of a ventilator and an artificial surfactant, Murray Kesselman, medical director of pediatric intensive care at the hospital, and his team were able to open the lungs back up.

 

For days afterward, Sam remained in a coma. Nobody knew how his brain had been affected. The prognosis wasn't good.

 

“When you look at submersion injuries and near drownings, in most circumstances 20 minutes would not be associated with recovery,” Dr. Kesselman said. “It wasn't clear what kind of awareness he would have.”

 

His parents and four siblings prayed around him. “You always have to have hope,” Mr. Gross said. “As long as there's life, there's hope.”

 

After a week, Sam's body stabilized from the original anoxic insult and doctors took him off the ventilator. Several days ago, he started opening his eyes but, discouragingly, “with no awareness,” said Dr. Kesselman. “We were very concerned.”

 

Concern turned to jubilation on Wednesday, nearly two weeks after Sam slipped into the frigid stream. The child opened his eyes, moved his arm and his father heard him say “Ouch.”

 

Dr. Kesselman started testing his brain, asking him his age, birth date and father's cellphone number. He passed with flying colours. “And then he would say, ‘Alright, what else do you want me to do?' “ said Dr. Kesselman, who anticipates the boy will be released in about two weeks. “He's the boy that he was. His brain function looks very good. The potential for recovery is remarkable.”

 

Dr. Kesselman said the sequence of events saved the boy: cold water, rapid helicopter deployment, expert treatment.

 

Mr. Gross has a different explanation.

 

“My prayers have been answered,” he said. “It's a miracle.”

 

With a report from CTV News

[Greencoachdog]

Yeah, near freezing water temps can be forgiving in some very rare circumstances... but in most circumstances, they take what is rightfully theirs!!!

 

Your lifejacket.. it won't kill you to wear it!!!