Here’s a personal secret: For years, I’ve been working on a novel about an extended space voyage. One that starts in 1992, in our world, using only technology and resources available in 1992. Not really an “alternative history,” like that presented in the new (and excellent) television program For All Mankind, but a “secret history” that, for all you know, really did happen. Or at least could have.
But there’s one point in this novel on which I’ve been forced to cheat, because to make my journey work, it was necessary that I find some way to cut down on the resources needed by the crew of my craft, and the only way I could find was … suspended animation. That is, some form of human hibernation in which biological processes were slowed to an extreme level, reducing the need for food, water, and oxygen. That’s a technology that definitely did not exist in 1992.
Which isn’t to say that people were not trying to create it. Multiple experiments were done across the 1980s and earlier looking for ways for someone to actually bring this science-fictional feat to fruition. Everyone understood that cold was the key, but bringing body temperature down to near freezing alone was not enough. Even when test subjects (please note, nonhuman test subjects) survived an extended period at or below freezing temperatures, warming seemed to generate a whole new set of issues. Many subjects showed neurological damage, and even when the results were good, the reason wasn’t exactly clear.
But early on, one combination showed promise: not just dropping the temperature, but also draining the blood. Several generations of such experiments, many of them overseas, culminated in 2004 with a paper from the University of Pittsburgh that described an experiment in which 14 dogs had their blood pumped away and replaced with chilled salt water just 2 degrees above freezing. In that study, all 14 dogs were revived after an hour without heartbeats. All of them recovered and seemed to be normal.
And now, building on that research, it’s finally happening with humans. The popular science magazine New Scientist reports that doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have already placed at least one patient in suspended animation using the process now labeled “emergency preservation and resuscitation.”
EPR is, for the moment at least, being restricted to cases in which there is a severe trauma that can only be treated if the heart if not beating—for example, a need to repair a stab wound in the heart muscle itself. In this process, a patient is rapidly cooled to around 10 degrees C (50 degrees F) using the same technique of replacing blood with chilled saline solution. While not as cold as the fluid used in some earlier studies, the saline solution is cold enough that the heart can be completely stilled and brain activity drops to almost nothing.
It’s in this condition, which New Scientist describes as “classified as dead,” that the patient is moved to the operating room for necessary surgery.
This trial, which may include as many as 10 patients, allows for up to two hours before the patient is warmed, their blood returned, and their heart restarted. Interestingly, the FDA gave permission for this technique to be used with patients who have not given consent, because the conditions that would call for the process—damage that requires the heart be stilled for treatment—are such that the patient may be both unable to give consent and in an emergency situation.
There are many known instances in which patients have recovered from hypothermia or other conditions, such as drowning, due to low body temperatures. And chilling either patients or organs has become standard procedure in some surgeries. But this new study pushes the boundaries into something that most people would genuinely perceive as “suspended animation,” even if the practical time periods involved are not quite enough to get a rocket to … nope. I’m not telling that part. Not until I finish the book.