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Human patient put in suspended animation for the first time
Scientists (and sci-fi fans) have been talking about suspended animation for years. The idea that the functions of the human body can somehow be put on "pause" while life-saving medical procedures are performed (or a person is sent into space, a la Alien) has long seemed untenable -- until now. According to New Scientist, doctors have successfully placed humans in suspended animation for the first time, in a trial that could have an enormous influence on the future of emergency room surgery.
I'd die without my phone: 5 people whose lives were saved by iPhones
We've all heard someone say "I'd die without my phone." 99 percent of the time what the person means is "Candy Crush and texting is the only thing that gets me through the day", but what about the other 1 percent. No, not the foes of the Occupy movement. We mean the people whose lives have literally been saved through the deus ex machina, or iOS ex machina, in their pocket. They're real, and they're still alive. Here are some of their stories. Dan Woolley Saved from: Injuries sustained during a earthquake On January 12, 2010 a massive 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti 16 miles west of the country's capital, Port-au-Prince. The quake devastated the area, killing over 100,000 people and collapsing hundreds of thousands of buildings. In one of those buildings was Dan Woolley, an aid worker from Colorado. Trapped in his hotel Woolley had injuries to his head and leg, with no sign of help coming. Thankfully he had a first aid app on his iPhone. Using advice from the app Woolley was able to treat his wounds, using his shirt and a sock as bandages to stem the bleeding. When he finally got the bleeding under control Woolley used his phone's camera to take pictures of his surroundings to try and discover a way out. He recounted the story to a NBC affiliate in Miami: "I took pictures all around me, then I would hold up the back of the camera to me and I could see what the picture was of a little," he said. "I was able to find an elevator in one of the pictures and that is where I decided to hobble to be in a more safe location." Xavier Jones Saved from: A stopped heart caused by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy We've all made impulse purchases in the App Store, but when La Verne Lutheran High School basketball coach Eric Cooper Sr. purchased the Phone Aid app he had no idea it would be the difference between life and death for one of his students. During a team practice the day after Cooper bought the app, 17-year-old Xavier Jones collapsed on the court. Jones heart had stopped due to complications from a condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which causes the heart's muscle tissue to harden due to limited blood flow. Thankfully Coach Cooper had Phone Aid, and using CPR tips from the app he was able to revive Jones and keep him safe until paramedics arrived. While coaches are required to be trained in CPR, Cooper was thankful for the app. In an interview the coach told the L.A. Times, "It was really fresh and clear in my brain. We are trained in CPR, but the iPhone app was a stabilizer for us." An unnamed man in Orange County Saved from: A suicide attempt In 2013 Orange County deputies used the iPhone's "Find My Phone" function to locate a man who was missing and in danger. The unnamed man's wife called the police seeking help for her husband who was missing and possibly suicidal. Due to towers in the area, the police were unable to use their search helicopter to find the man. However there was a technological sliver of hope; the man's iPhone. Utilizing Find My Phone, the police were able to track the man down in just minutes. When they found him at the end of a dirt road he was still alive, but had attempted to take his own life. Thanks to quick thinking and the iPhone's tracking capabilities the man was saved. Tina Josephson Saved from: Heart problems Andrew Josephson was proud of his family. His grandfather was Dr. Daniel Mason, a cardiologist who produced a three-CD set of digitized heart sounds designed to teach medical students how to detect heart problems. The collection contained hundreds of sounds, some of them from incredibly rare heart problems. In 2011 after graduating with a degree in biochemistry from Lehigh University, Josephson was trying to figure out his future. One day he discovered his grandfather's collection of heart sounds on a family bookshelf and was struck with the idea for an app. The app was called "Listening to the Heart" and used the iPhone to record a person's heart beat. It then compared the recording to Dr. Mason's collection and used it to identify possible problems. Since he was new to programing Josephson tested the app on his friends and family. All of his friends produced normal results, but when his mother Tina tried the app her tests always came up abnormal, even after multiple tests. Mrs. Josephson initially ignored the apps results, but during a ski trip she noticed an abnormal shortness of breath. Remembering the iPhone app's results, she went to a cardiologist when she returned home from the trip. The doctor confirmed the app's diagnosis; she had a heart murmur due to mitral valve prolapse and mitral valve regurgitation which would require surgery to fix. Andrew Josephson's app is now available in the App Store for $9.99, and while his mother is proud of her son, she was surprised by the diagnosis. This past February she told ABC News, "The app is something very exciting, though it's not something I wanted to happen to me. I was the daughter of a cardiologist. How could there be anything wrong with my heart?" Staff Sgt. Shaun Frank Saved from: Suicide bomber In 2012 Staff Sgt. Shaun Frank of Utah was serving his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. One day while helping members of his unit overturn a vehicle, a local teenager walked up and detonated a suicide bomb loaded with ball bearings and shrapnel. Frank was injured, receiving wounds to his thumb, fingers, hands, and legs, but narrowly avoided being killed thanks to the iPhone in his left front pants pocket. When Frank arrived back at base for treatment he was told the iPhone had probably saved his life, stopping several ball bearings from injuring the major arteries in his leg. When he got back to the U.S. the Staff Sgt. sent his phone to Apple in hopes it would be covered under "accidental damage insurance." The company replaced his phone, but initially told him they'd have to keep his old one. After a three months, and media coverage, Apple finally agreed to give him back his original phone. So the next time you hear someone arbitrarily whining about how they'd die without their phone remember one simple thing; they may just be right. If they have the right apps or a little good luck having your iPhone might just keep you around to live another day.
iPad credited with helping save a man's life at the Mayo Clinic
The world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota has been issuing iPads to physicians for a while, and now one of the Apple tablets is credited with helping to save the life of a man who suffered an arterial blockage at the facility. As reported in the Post-Bulletin newspaper, 48-year-old Andy McMonigle was working out with his cycling club at the clinic's Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center when he began to feel intense pressure in his arm. McMonigle has a history of heart trouble, so he immediately went to the locker room and asked a man for help. That man was Mayo Clinic internal medicine resident Dr. Daniel Leuders, who stayed by the side of McMonigle and yelled loudly for assistance. Two other Mayo residents (brothers Daniel and Christopher DeSimone) were literally just around the corner, so when they arrived Leuders reached into his backpack and pulled out his iPad. Within seconds, Leuders was connected to the Mayo's electronic medical record system, where he was able to pull up McMonigle's medical history. The history showed that McMonigle had a heart stent installed after a previous heart attack four years ago, which made the physicians suspect that he was suffering from a blockage in the stent. When an ambulance crew arrived, Leuders and the other physicians held the iPad record of McMonigle's previous EKG alongside the strip chart that was being printed in real time. What they saw further confirmed their suspicions about the blockage. The physicians made a choice based on the EKG records that probably saved McMonigle's life. Rather than wait upwards of three hours to run a blood test to verify the clotting, the doctors rushed McMonigle to the cardiac catheterization lab where a team (alerted by activating an emergency code) was waiting. They removed the clot from his artery, which was about 90 percent blocked. Within three days, McMonigle was released from the hospital and after four more days, he was working out again at the Healthy Living Center. Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt.
Wii remote enrolled in student-developed CPR training program
Taking a more passive approach with the Wii remote than, say, operating a 15-ton grapple or saving your friends on Tatooine, a team of biomedical engineering undergraduates at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have been developing a companion CPR training program. Using the controller's built-in accelerometer, it tracks hand position as you practice those vital life-saving maneuverings, charting depth and rate of compression to give you a more accurate performance reading than the conventional Resusci Anne mannequin. The American Heart Association is sure impressed: it just pledged a $50,000 fund to UAB for the continuation of the project. The software's expected to be complete early fall 2009, with an open source download being released on the AHA website. No telling what these crazy kids'll accomplish once MotionPlus gets its time to shine.[Via Coolest Gadgets]
