Amazing. I'm still trying to understand it though.

lesson learned for me. I probably would have walked away at some point. my rule of thumb was that serious CPR is only worthwhile for drownings and electrocutions. I guess i'll add hypothermia to the list :-)

Pete

What a save.

Since nobody mentioned the obvious yet, I will. Her being gorgeous and alone had something to do with their continued efforts. She was like the dazzling damsel in distress. I guarantee at least one of the guys (or girls) had previously fantasized about her being his (or her) future wife.

I dunno. I've performed CPR and I've had sex, fortunately rather more of the latter. CPR and sex are not at all similar.

While unconscious biases sometimes influence people's actions, I think sucking out the "pink froth of death" through a tube is about as unsexy as it gets (ooh, baby!). The situation would have been cold, wet, exhausting, and bleak all around. The real story is how an ad-hoc team formed, under experienced leadership, and kept going against all odds.

That right there is the funniest thing I've ever read on ETS.

I'll present this concept another way. Would your motivation to save your daughter or mother be greater than your motivation to save a complete stranger? For me, the answer is absolutely yes. (I am sorry if that makes anybody feel uncomfortable, but honesty is important for useful dialogue.)

Accordingly, it's possible to be more motivated to save some people and less motivated to save others. I believe that concept came into play here. After all, we are talking about an unprecedented CPR effort that is likely to cause instruction manuals to be rewritten. Note that the rescuers spent some time with the girl before the rescue. They weren't strangers.

Interesting and significant question. To me, the answer is no; this is based on actual experiences in responding to serious situations involving complete strangers, friends and acquaintances, and family members, especially my oldest daughter. The immediate, visceral response to the immediate situation is identical, and one's training kicks in to render immediate care.

There is a significant difference in the extent and duration of one's involvement to those three categories. With strangers, you involve other components of EMS,and hand off fairly quickly once you have performed your function, which may be quite strenuous and even potentially hazardous. Your emotional involvement is fairly minimal and you resume normality soon.

An example of a close friend situation. We were attending a meeting out of town and he suffered a grand mal seizure, no previous history and quite unexpected. I was there to ride to the ER, provide info,call his wife, but I was back essentially to normal very late that evening about seven hours after the event.

My daughter sustained a depressed skull fracture while we were doing field work at Canyon de Chelly. I was immediately off the project, participated heavily in emergency care, and spent the next week at her bedside in the ICU, alternating with my wife. We got back to normal, kind of, in about three weeks. I remember attending my SAR group's monthly meeting the first evening we returned home. The presentation that night was "Cranial injuries and their care."

... about 30 years back while on active duty we were participating in a Naval exercise in one of the Norwegian Fjords'. The staff doctor was a Naval flight surgeon and he was the first person who made the comment to me that "you aren't dead until you're warm and dead", while discussing cold water survival and hypothermia.

30 years later... My thinking is that the responders in the case at hand knew that if they gave up before she warmed up they would have failed; once you start you don't stop. This woman is fortunate she had a team of responders to keep her alive from the snow to the hospital and that the team in the hospital was ready. I don't think it was because she's a looker; I think there was a group dynamic at work and this effort will rewrite the book.