Scientists have been reviving pigs and dogs after draining their blood, injecting them with a saline solution, and reviving them hours later. This groundbreaking “switch” technology for life could revolutionize medicine.
Hasan Alam, a surgical professor at Massachusetts General Hospital (USA), announced: “We just brought a pig back to life after it was dead for a few hours.” This miraculous process is also being tested at the Vienna General Hospital (Austria). There, scientists used electrical currents to stop the pigs’ hearts, allowing them to “die” for half an hour, but later, the pigs opened their eyes and stood up. Dr. Wilhelm Behringer, a physician in Vienna, commented: “The miracle is that they were revived without any neurological complications.”
In recent years, hundreds of pigs have been temporarily sent to the afterlife and then returned unharmed through the same method: they are injected with liters of cold saline solution at 2 degrees Celsius, putting them into a suspended state. This mysterious state prevents the cells in the seemingly dead pigs from dying completely. All experiments are conducted under deep anesthesia, so they do not experience pain.
Until now, only films and science fiction stories have depicted the possibility of humans “taking a break” from life for a time and then returning. Or that those with terminal illnesses could be temporarily “frozen” and stop living until science finds a treatment. The desire for a second life is so strong for some that they have paid significant amounts of money to have their bodies “preserved” in liquid nitrogen after death. Such bodies have been stored for decades in special containers in Arizona and California (USA) awaiting resurrection.
The successful experiments on animals have made these ideas seem less fantastical. Researchers in this new field, tentatively called resurrection science, have not yet quantified specific timeframes, but they are confident that they can send humans to the afterlife for several hours and then bring them back unharmed.
Professor Hasan Alam stated: “It may sound like science fiction, but there is a concrete basis for deliberately putting a human body into a state of suspended activity. We are currently preparing for the first clinical trials on human subjects.” Some scientific teams in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Houston (USA) are also exploring this direction.
Methods for Temporarily Suspending Life and Their Applications
According to Professor Alam, the “candidates” for temporary journeys into the afterlife and back are severely injured individuals from gunshot wounds or accidents brought to emergency care in hospitals. While it is easy to stitch open wounds, doctors often need a lot of time to do so, and typically, more than 90% of victims have already lost too much blood by the time they are treated.
By actively putting the victims’ bodies into a state of suspension, medical professionals can buy precious minutes to transport the victims to the hospital and perform surgery. Professor Alam envisions that instead of traditional blood transfusions, emergency doctors could quickly drain the patient’s blood within minutes, collect it, and then rapidly pump cold saline solution into the victim’s body. After the wounds are bandaged and stitched, the blood could be pumped back into the victim’s body, effectively bringing them back to life. The Massachusetts team plans to conduct human trials within the next 12-18 months.
Professor Peter Safar, an Austrian physician who passed away in 2003 at the age of 79, also recognized the value of a suspended state for humans. He had researched the idea of developing a new rescue method for the U.S. military. Many American soldiers have died from large wounds, with their hearts stopping due to excessive blood loss. With a little more time, surgeons could stitch their wounds in a field hospital and thereby control the bleeding, saving their lives. At the University of Pittsburgh, Professor Peter Safar successfully put a dog’s body into a state of suspension. To do this, he drained the animal’s blood and quickly injected cold saline solution into its body via the aorta (at a rate of 1-2 liters per minute). Within minutes, the animal’s body temperature dropped to 10 degrees Celsius.
From a conventional medical perspective, the animal was considered dead: its heart stopped, it ceased to breathe, and its brain was inactive. Its blood was collected, kept warm, oxygenated, and later pumped back into its body. The elderly professor used a weak electrical current to revive the experimental animal. After Professor Peter Safar’s death, his colleagues continued to develop this method by adding a small amount of sugar to the saline solution. Last June, they announced that using this method, they could revive dogs even after they had been dead for three hours.
In other experiments, scientists have shown that the principle of “suspending life” could lead to a revolution in emergency medicine. Professor Behringer’s research team in Vienna is investigating the application of this principle when treating patients suffering from cardiac arrest due to strokes, who often die very quickly when the heart suddenly stops. They simulated experiments on pigs: the experimental animals were deeply anesthetized, and then an electric current was applied to their chest to stop their hearts, mimicking the case of a person experiencing cardiac arrest. After 15 minutes, the heart completely stopped, and after 20 minutes of recovery using conventional methods such as chest compressions and medication, very few pigs survived, and those that did suffered neurological complications.
Results were significantly more promising when, before recovery, they injected 3 liters of saline solution through the pigs’ aorta while actively cooling the brain and heart. Unlike the method used by the Massachusetts scientists, they did not drain the animal’s blood. After waiting for 20 minutes (the average time required to transport a patient to the hospital), the animal was connected to a heart-lung machine and then placed into a gentle suspended sleep lasting 24 hours, with its body temperature maintained at 33 degrees Celsius. They were then revived. 85% of the experimental animals recovered without any significant adverse effects.
Professor Hasan Alam’s team also achieved promising results. Their goal is to rescue victims of blood loss. In their experiments, they actively inflicted potentially fatal wounds on pigs and only stitched them up half an hour later. All animals that were not injected with the cooling solution died. The others were quickly “cooled”: their body temperature dropped from 37 degrees Celsius to 10 degrees Celsius within 28 minutes. After emergency surgery, 87% of them revived after more than an hour. The miracle is that none of the pigs experienced any neurological complications after their journey to the afterlife.
The Effects of Cooling Shock – The Main Mechanism of Life Suspension
These experimental results appear to contradict biological principles. Until now, we have understood that without oxygen for just a few minutes (4-5 minutes for humans), the brain will die. Heart cells and other tissues also die without adequate oxygen supply.
It is therefore clear that “cooling shock” can disrupt the process of dying from oxygen deprivation. Professor Hasan Alam explains: “When a person’s body temperature drops by 10 degrees Celsius, metabolism decreases by 50%. This slows down the process of “dying.” Thus, at a body temperature of 30 degrees Celsius, the brain can survive for 20 minutes without oxygen, while at 10 degrees Celsius, the brain can survive for 90-120 minutes in this state.” This mechanism explains the miraculous cases of people surviving prolonged periods of oxygen deprivation. In early 2000, a 3-year-old girl fell into the Neckar River, which was around 10 degrees Celsius. Although she was rescued 45 minutes later, she was able to be revived.
Why does extreme cold protect animals and humans from death? This question has yet to be thoroughly researched. One ongoing debate is whether metabolic processes continue to occur in body cells for some time after a person has died. However, the remaining oxygen in the blood is insufficient to produce energy, and the free oxygen molecules generated by respiration can destroy cells. This means that the continuation of metabolic processes in cells leads to their demise. Perhaps the cold saline solution halts this process, partly because the low temperature significantly reduces metabolic activity, and partly because the solution pushes all blood containing oxygen out of the cells and tissues. Thus, the respiratory system loses energy, and the cells will no longer be damaged by free oxygen molecules, allowing the body to gradually slide into a gentle, suspended state.
Therefore, a “sleep leading to death” could also be initiated if cellular respiration is halted by other means. Cell biologist Mark Roth from the University of Washington has demonstrated this through a series of experiments. He used CO and HS gases, which affect oxygen-consuming metabolic processes and combine with proteins and enzymes in the body, thereby halting respiration. For example, when he exposed mice to a mixture of HS gas and ambient air, they fell into a “winter sleep.” Their hearts no longer beat 120 times but only 10 times per minute. Their body temperature dropped from 37 degrees Celsius to 15 degrees Celsius. After 6 hours, their metabolic performance decreased by 90%. The revival process for the mice was quite simple. When they were returned to normal air and temperature conditions, they revived and were healthy as before the experiment. Professor Roth plans to continue testing on larger animals and eventually on humans.
However, it remains unknown how long these journeys to the afterlife can last. The current limits are 3 hours for dogs and 6 hours for mice. The method of immersing corpses in liquid nitrogen is certainly ineffective. Metabolic processes cease at -196 degrees Celsius, but at that point, ice crystals form within the cells, destroying tissues. Therefore, anyone preserved in liquid nitrogen will never wake up again.
I’m sorry, but it seems you haven’t provided the Vietnamese article you’d like to have translated. Please share the text, and I’ll be happy to help with the translation!
