Lazarus syndrome, hypothermia, “contagion”… are hypothesized to cause a person to be declared dead and then come back to life, but remains a mystery.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “There is nothing more certain in this world than death and taxes”. However, in the clinical setting, when a person stops breathing, the heart and organs stop working, it is not possible to say for sure that they are dead.
According to Medicalnewstoday, in 2014 an 80-year-old woman was “live frozen” in a hospital morgue after being misdiagnosed. That same year, a New York hospital declared a woman brain dead after a drug overdose. This woman woke up shortly after being taken to the operating room to have her organs removed.
In another case, 91-year-old Janina Kolkiewicz was pronounced dead by doctors when her heart stopped beating and was no longer breathing. People prepared funeral rites for her in the hospital, 11 hours later Janina Kolkiewicz suddenly woke up expressing a craving for tea and pancakes. She became a “returning from the dead” phenomenon.
In 2001, a 66-year-old man suffered cardiac arrest during surgery for an abdominal aneurysm. The doctor spent 17 minutes trying to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, defibrillation…, the patient still did not wake up. The doctors eventually determined he was dead. However, the man’s heart suddenly started working again 10 minutes later.
In this world nothing is more certain than death and taxes. (Photo: Medicalnewstoday).
According to scientists, these seemingly extraordinary stories of death are a sign of Lazarus syndrome. This syndrome is defined as the delayed return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) after cardiopulmonary arrest. When this pressure stops working, it will gradually release and the heart and lungs will start working again. Since 1982, when the Lazarus phenomenon was first described in medicine, at least 38 cases have been recorded. Patients who are determined to be dead after cardiac arrest will wake up and function normally.
Research published in 2007 by Vedamurthy Adhiyaman and colleagues found that about 82% of people with Lazarus syndrome occur within 10 minutes when the heart and lungs stop beating. 45% of patients recovered well after waking up.
One question that arises is the failure of organs in the body due to the delay in circulation or the lack of continuous resuscitation techniques in the hospital. Currently, scientists around the world have not fully explained the Lazarus phenomenon. However, they believe the syndrome is more common than previous studies have shown.
One theory is that this phenomenon is caused by a side effect of drugs that try to resuscitate, such as adrenaline. In addition, excessively high blood potassium levels are also hypothesized for the Lazarus phenomenon. Scientists say that “It should not be called the phenomenon of ‘rebirth and death’, because patients with Lazarus syndrome never die”.
So how to know exactly whether a person is really dead or not? According to scientists, there are two types of death: clinical death and biological death. Clinical death is defined as no heartbeat, no breathing, while biological death is the absence of brain activity. From this definition, you can tell if a person is dead or not. In some cases, however, it is not so simple.
A number of medical manifestations that can diagnose a patient’s death include hypothermia, neurological paralysis, and “capacitation,” a syndrome in which the patient remains fully awake but unresponsive. Accordingly, when the body temperature drops suddenly, it is easy for prolonged exposure and cold, causing death. Some patients have hypothermia, which causes their heart rate and breathing to become so slow it’s almost undetectable that they’re dead.
Hypothermia was also the cause of the misdiagnosed death of a newborn baby in Canada in 2013. The baby was born on the sidewalk in frigid temperatures. The doctors were unable to feel her heartbeat and breathing. The baby was declared dead. Two hours later, the baby started to move.
Dr Michael Klein, of the University of British Columbia in Canada, says that a baby’s exposure to cold temperatures causes all circulation to stop. Meanwhile, the child’s neurological status remains active and remains aware in the cold.
Many people with “arrhythmia” present with slow breathing, decreased sensitivity, and complete immobility, which can last from a few minutes to several weeks. This condition can arise as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Accordingly, the patient is aware of his surroundings but has complete paralysis of the voluntary muscles, with the exception of the muscles that control eye movements. As a result, many are falsely declared “dead” . Fortunately, according to researchers, Lazarus syndrome is extremely rare.
The researchers recommend that patients be monitored for 10 minutes after death, because that is the timeframe in which spontaneous circulation is delayed. The patient should not be immediately declared dead when there are signs of cardiac, pulmonary and respiratory arrest. Health care professionals and researchers are of the same opinion that a doctor with expertise and modern medical equipment can identify a deceased person.