Doctors put first ever human in suspended animation

BALTIMORE— Doctors have put at least one human in suspended animation, the New Scientist reports.

They performed it as part of a trial to save gunshot or stabbing victims who may have minutes to live.

Maryland University researcher Samuel Tisherman told the New Scientist that traumatic injuries could result in massive blood loss and then cardiac arrest, robbing the brain of oxygen.

Irreversible damage would occur to the brain within five minutes and the patient's survival rate is less than five percent, according to the New Scientist.

Tisherman said that the emergency preservation and resuscitation technique, or EPR, replaces all of the patient's blood with ice-cold saline solution.

The researcher explained that EPR reduces the need for oxygen by cooling the body and brain, which gives surgeons two hours to repair the injuries.

According to Tisherman, the trial will compare EPR's results on a group of ten patients to a control group. Both groups will be treated at the university's hospital.