I love those stories, but I do want to point out that it was "just" 20 minutes, in near freezing water, for an 8 year old boy that survived only because of the helo and hours of intense resuscitative efforts. Even then (while I hope it is all good, the reality is that brain damage and other permanent disabilities may be possible.
I only point this out because these are realities that the public don’t understand. We all know that prolonged submersion victims have poor survival rates and that it is only in very rare circumstances where “the stars align” that “long time” submersion victims survive.
We had a drowning victim 2 summers ago in our counties high country. 40 year old Iraq Veteran goes under the 60 degree F water in a small pond at 6,000 feet. He is under for about 5 minutes before 911 is called. Volunteer FFs show up 15 minutes later. Ambulance is another 15 minutes behind them. Neither have dive capabilities. I (and several other team members) show up about 45-60 minutes post drowning. The Teams Dive equipment is still another 60 minutes behind us. By the time we retrieve the remains it has been 2 ½ hours. The family was present (on vacation) and one person in particular was furious with us because we (EMTs, Medics, and Coroners) refused to initiate CPR. He was so mad that he threatened to do it himself and even got boarderline violent (another reason SAR responds with Deputies). Common grieving reaction that was based solely on his reading of a case (we have all heard this one) where someone was revived after being submerged for over an hour. “Why won’t you give my son-in-law the same fighting chance?” Obviously we know that his age, combined with the warmer water, combined with the down time, combined with the rigor, made revival stupid to even try. And the reality is that those rare cases where people are revived after being under for 15, 20, 30, 60 minutes are only due to a “fortunate” set of circumstances. And even then “recovery” is a subjective term. Yes they get the beat beating again. But, secondary conditions often claim those lives soon after or leave them severally debilitated. If I am not mistaken, and correct me if I am wrong (articles please), but that one really publicized case of that boy surviving a 60-70 minutes submersion resulted in his death a week later in the ICU from respiratory related complications.
Great story when someone survives. I hope he makes a full recovery. I just hate it that cases like this give others hope when there is little to be had with prolonged submersion victims.
