How an Australian hospital is bringing clinically dead people back to life

Resurrection may no longer be the stuff of myth

Doctors at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne have a knack for resurrection. Thanks to a combination of two resuscitation techniques, the Australian team has successfully revived three patients who were officially dead for between 40 and 60 minutes.

One of those patients was 39-year-old Colin Fielder, who suffered a heart attack last year. While being whisked away in the ambulance, he was asked which of the two nearby hospitals he preferred. "For some reason, I said The Alfred, which is pretty lucky because they are the only one that has it," Fielder said.

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"It" is the AutoPulse, a portable CPR machine that performs constant chest compressions that essentially keep the heart beating. What makes the AutoPulse unique is that instead of pistons pressing and lifting only one part of the sternum, the AutoPulse uses a band that wraps around and squeezes the entire chest. (See a video of the machine in action below.) As a result, "victims receive more consistent, high-quality compressions… which means improved blood flow," according to the manufacturer's website.

In addition to the AutoPulse, The Alfred doctors also used a technique on Fielder called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) — it's essentially an artificial lung outside the body that keeps oxygen and blood flowing to the patient's brain and vital organs. ECMOs have been used in the past for lung transplant recipients as well as extremely ill newborns. But it is this combination of ECMOs and the AutoPulse, currently in clinical trials at The Alfred, that has proved successful in reviving the dead.

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The combination of the ECMO and AutoPulse help to keep the body "living" while also giving doctors time to diagnose the heart attack source and treat it. More time and care means an increased chance of survival and ensures further research can be conducted on cardiac arrests — still the most common cause of death worldwide.

The Alfred has so far used these treatments on seven patients, three of whom survived without further complications despite being clinically dead for substantial amounts of time. If the trials can build on these early successes, other Australian hospitals may see the expanded role of the ECMO and the AutoPulse in their own facilities, officials say.

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Now before you up and move to Australia, similar techniques have been used in the U.S in equally limited trials. Dr. Sam Parnia, head of intensive care at Stony Brook University Hospital in New York, has dedicated his career to bringing ill people back from the dead. His research has taught him that successful resuscitation comes by way of mechanical CPR combined with ECMO treatment. Parnia says these methods are not only straightforward and relatively cheap, but also could save up to an estimated 40,000 American lives per year. To help spread the word to doctors and patients alike, Parnia wrote a book earlier this year called The Lazarus Effect.

In the book, Parnia describes how Japan has already standardized the practice of using ECMO in emergency rooms. Siphoning the dead person's blood out of the body, into and through an external oxygenator, and back through the body has reportedly extended the time a person can be dead and brought back to life again by hours. Parnia tells The Guardian of one such miraculous instance:

"The longest I know of is a Japanese girl I mention in the book," Parnia says. "She had been dead for more than three hours. And she was resuscitated for six hours. Afterwards, she returned to life perfectly fine and has, I have been told, recently had a baby." [The Guardian]

Sources: American Heart Association, Daily Mail, EMS1.com, The Guardian, HHGN.com, U.S. National Library of Medicine, New York Presbyterian

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Motorcycle bomb at Afghan market kills 3 people

KABUL (AP) — A bomb hidden in a parked motorcycle ripped through a crowded Afghan market in southern Helmand province on Tuesday, killing at least three people, as NATO reported that U.S. special forces had come under attack the previous day north of Kabul.

The attack on the Americans was the second that targeted international troops in Afghanistan on Monday.

According to NATO spokesman Maj. Bryan Woods, a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a U.S. Special Operation Forces' convoy as it was returning to base after clearing land mines north of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

There were no casualties in that attack, which occurred in Kapisa province, said Woods. He said as the bomber targeted the U.S. convoy, insurgents simultaneously started firing upon it.

Qais Qadri, spokesman for the Kapisa governor, said one civilian was killed in the attack but Woods could not confirm the civilian death, saying only that the special forces returned safely to their base "after engaging the enemy."

Earlier on Monday, a truck bomb hit the entrance of a Georgian outpost in the Musa Qala district in Helmand, one of the most volatile regions of Afghanistan, killing three service members from the former Soviet republic. Georgian soldiers are under NATO's command.

And on Tuesday, the motorcycle bomb hit a market in Safar, a village 70 kilometers (42 miles) from the district center of Garamser in Helmand, said Omer Zawak, the spokesman for the provincial governor.

Three people were killed and seven were wounded in the blast, said Zawak, fearing the toll would rise because Tuesday is the day local residents hold their weekly bazaar. Four children were among the wounded and two of them were reported in critical condition, said police spokesman, Shah Mahmood Hashna.

Zawak said that in Monday's attack on Georgian soldiers, several troops were also wounded. The deaths of the three Georgian troops brought the number of soldiers from the former Soviet republic killed in Afghanistan to 22. Georgia has about 1,600 troops in Afghanistan, the largest non-NATO contingent there. Georgian soldiers are under NATO's command.

So far this month, 12 international service members have been killed in Afghanistan, according to an Associated Press count. Along with the three Georgians, eight of those were Americans and one was German.

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Associated Press writers Amir Shah and Rahim Faiez in Kabul, and Mirwais Khan in Kandahar, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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UN : At least 35 people killed by Congo fighters

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — The United Nations mission in Congo says at least 35 people were killed after hundreds of militia fighters attacked the southeast mining center of Lubumbashi, before surrendering.

The U.N. says at least 54 people had also been injured and were transferred to hospitals, among them the Mai Mai fighters.

The statement by the U.N. on Sunday welcomes the surrender of 245 Mai Mai fighters.

U.N.-run Radio Okapi on Saturday reported that fighters — armed with bows and arrows and machetes — had surrendered to the U.N. peacekeeping force. Children were reportedly among the militia when it attacked the city.

The Mai Mai militiamen are seeking to secede from Katanga province. Eastern Congo is home to a myriad of rebel groups who terrorize civilians, though most attacks are further north.

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Roadside bomb kills 9 people in southwest Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A bomb hidden in a rickshaw exploded outside a bus terminal near a busy bazar in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing at least nine people and wounding 40, officials said.

The explosion came hours after a U.S. drone targeted a vehicle in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, killing three suspected militants, two intelligence officials said.

The rickshaw bomb struck in the town of Jafarabad, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) east of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. It also destroyed several shops, said senior government official Syed Zafar Bukhari.

Bukhari said the motive for the attack was not clear. He said the victims were taken to a hospital, where some of the injured were listed in critical condition.

"I can only confirm that the bomb killed nine people," Bukhari told The Associated Press by phone. "It would be premature to say who orchestrated the attack."

Although no group claimed responsibility, suspicion fell on Bluch nationalists who have waged a decades-long insurgency against the government in Baluchistan for greater autonomy and a larger share of the province's natural resources. The province is also home to many radical Islamist militants.

In the drone strike, a pair of missiles fired from the unmanned aircraft hit a vehicle in a bazar near the Datta Khel village of North Waziristan tribal region at about midnight Thursday, the two intelligence officials said.

The suspects were traveling from the border town of Shawal to Datta Khel, a stronghold of local Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, the officials added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. They said the nationalities and identities of the slain men were not immediately known. Pakistani government and army spokesmen could not be reached for comment.

Drone strikes often cause tension between Washington and Islamabad. They are extremely unpopular in this Islamic nation, where many people believe the drone attacks mostly kill civilians, an allegation disputed by U.S. officials.

The CIA drone strikes have killed scores of suspected al-Qaida and Taliban men in Pakistan's tribal region over the past few years. The secret nature of the program makes it difficult to determine how many civilians are being killed.

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Associated Press Writer Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Peshawar.

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Zimbabwe: 2 million people voted in referendum

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe's official election body says an estimated 2 million people cast their vote in a referendum on a new constitution that seeks to curb presidential powers and strengthen human rights.

Judge Rita Makarau, head of the electoral commission, said Sunday the low estimate came from early returns from the nation's 9,400 polling stations.

Zimbabwe has an estimated 6.6 million registered voters. All main political parties had called for a "Yes" vote amid fears of a low voter turnout. Zimbabweans were given just three weeks to read the 170-page draft of the constitution.

Makarau said Saturday's voting was carried out peacefully. Vote counting began late Saturday and full results from isolated areas are expected within five days.

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32 people killed as bus rolls in Kenya's east

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A police official says 32 people have died after the bus they were travelling in rolled in Kenya's eastern region.

Traffic police boss Samuel Kimaru said Wednesday the driver of the bus lost control at Tulimani area about 125 miles east of the capital, Nairobi. Kimaru said the bus was heading to Garissa, in eastern Kenya.

Kimaru said 50 people were hospitalized with injuries from the crash. Some 3,000 people die every year in Kenya as a result of traffic accidents. New laws introduced last year, which increase fines for traffic violations, have resulted in payment of higher bribes to police officers by traffic offenders, according to anti-corruption organizations.

Experts say lack of enforcement of traffic rules by police is a major cause of the road carnage.

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