Heart attack occurred and heart stopped for 40 hours, then as soon as he regained consciousness the patient left the hospital on foot.

China A surprising case has come to light in India, where a person’s life was saved even after his heart stopped beating for about 40 hours. After this incident, discussion on modern life-saving technologies has intensified on social media.

Lu Xiao, emergency doctor of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, shared this information on his social media account. After which the matter went viral.

What is the whole matter?

According to Dr. Lu, this 40-year-old man had suffered a cardiac arrest and despite giving electric defibrillation several times, his heartbeat did not return. After this, the medical team used Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) technique on him and saved his life despite the heart stopping for about two days.

ECMO is a life support machine, which works like artificial heart and lungs. It works to supply oxygen to the blood and remove carbon dioxide, especially in patients whose organs have stopped functioning.

When is this machine used?

This machine is often used in heart attack patients and during heart or lung transplant. Such cases have come to light earlier also, where with the help of this technology, patients’ lives were saved after hours. Last year, a 53-year-old woman in China’s Hubei province was saved with the help of ECMO five hours after her heart stopped. At the same time, in 2022, Yancheng No. 1 People’s Hospital of Jiangsu Province claimed to save a 36-year-old woman through ECMO after her heart stopped for 96 hours.

How effective is ECMO?

According to the hospital, while the chance of survival of cardiac arrest patients with traditional CPR is around 1%, with the help of ECMO this rate can increase up to 50%. However, there are some risks associated with ECMO treatment. Doctor Lu said that in this patient’s case, measures had to be taken to increase blood circulation to prevent the formation of blood clots, because the formation of clots could be fatal.

Additionally, the medical team must maintain a balance between blood clotting and excessive bleeding, a common and dangerous side effect of ECMO. This requires constant monitoring and a high level of expertise.

What was the condition of the patient after the heartbeat?

Even when the patient’s heartbeat returned, he was kept on ECMO support for about 10 days. According to Dr. Lu, in about 20 days the patient almost completely recovered, he walked out of the hospital on his own and no side effects like stroke, kidney failure or mental problems were seen.

Doctor Lu called this whole matter a miracle. He said that the patient is lucky, progress in medical technology, hard work of doctors and luck have a big role behind every successful treatment. After this incident, a heated discussion started among people on social media. One user said, “This person is very lucky that he got timely treatment, otherwise even ECMO would not have saved his life.”

The cost of setting up an ECMO machine in China is said to be around 50,000 yuan (about 7,000 US dollars) and beyond that the daily cost is more than 10,000 yuan. Usually this expense is not covered under social insurance.