The common belief that the human body can only last a short period of time without oxygen is being proven false. According to studies some cells lasted as long as an hour without oxygen before deteriorating. What makes it even more interesting is the fact that it's the re-oxygenation that is killing the cells; the cell receives too much oxygen too fast and shuts down. Some doctors believe it's an anti-cancer reaction to a abnormal function of the cell. So really an anti-cancer mechanism may be responsible for making us kill ourselves (in a matter of speaking). By slowing the process of re-oxygenation heart attack caused ER resuscitation has seen a healthy improvement. The survival rate has increased from 15 to 80%!
What does this mean? Well, for one ER resuscitation can be doing more damage than good, but it also means that victims of prolonged drownings are not as far gone as we thought. It's really interesting to find this out.
