Suspended spiritedness has admit many a sci - fi character to move to a distant turning point of space in a state of dormancy , only reanimating once they ’ve arrived at their otherworldly destination . Now , the concept is being tested as a fashion to save the lives of piercing hurt patients , with at least one somebody being placed in suspended animation in the US so far .

When a individual suffers a severe trauma like a stab or gunfire combat injury , they can lose so much blood that their center stops exhaust , which makes standard CPR futile . or else , surgeons start the chest and endeavor to reroute lineage to the heart and brain , but this often run out to save life sentence .

“ You ’ve make someone who ’s draw an injury , it ’s fixable , but you ’ve not got clip to posit it,”Professor Samuel Tisherman , of the University of Maryland School of Medicine , told an hearing at the New York Academy of Sciences symposium on November 18 .

So how do you buy more fourth dimension ? This is where the concept of suspended animation comes in , although as Tisherman pointed out during his speech , doc are essay to “ get out from the sci - fi impression of suspended animation , ” calling it emergency preservation and resuscitation ( EPR ) alternatively .

In a late interview , Tisherman tell Helen Thomson atNew Scientistmagazine that his squad has tested out EPR on at least one person , describing it as “ a little surreal ” . However , he did not say how many people had exist .

EPR involves chop-chop cooling the body down so that the brain is at a parky 10 - 15 ° C ( 50 - 59 ° atomic number 9 ) , far below its usual 37 ° C ( 98 ° F ) . This is done by pumping the body full of very cold salty water .

“ We come up with this mind that the fastest way we could chill the whole body , particularly the mental capacity and the ticker , was just to crimson the body with cold fluid , and saline ’s what we habituate , ” Tishermansaid at the symposium .

Being very cold slack bodily operation and chemical substance reactions right on down , meaning that organs like the brain want much less O than they would otherwise . Once in this cooled - down State Department , the patient can be rent to the operating way , where sawbones have up to two 60 minutes – rather than a affair of minutes – to get to work and repair the life - threatening scathe . Once complete , the patient role is resuscitated using a cardiopulmonary beltway , a machine that takes over the function of the philia and lungs .

The technique has proved successful on animals like grunter , so with approving from the FDA , Tisherman ’s team is take it to human subjects . Since people whose hearts have stopped due to acute trauma are improbable to survive , consent by the patient role is not required . However , the team print advertizing in local newspapers telling readers how to opt - out of the run if they so wished .

The programme is to try out EPR on 10 patient , using a further 10 as control . These controls will be patients who arrive at the infirmary when Tisherman ’s full squad is not there , meaning that EPR ca n’t be carried out .

EPR does have its drawback ; it is possible to stand jail cell damage when the body is warmed up and roue rate of flow is restored . precisely why this happens is n’t entirely clear , but sure medication might be able to foresee the effects . The ultimate aim is for patients to live without any significant neurological deficits .

“ We sure as shooting desire that this kind of attack , essentially just trying to stop the clock , buy fourth dimension , possibly with hypothermia , maybe with drugs … will allow us to save the trauma patient role that are currently die in front of us , ” Tisherman told the symposium .

“ Hopefully in the future we ’re going to have patients pull round that otherwise would not . ”

[ H / T : New Scientist ]