Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart suddenly stops pumping.
But some U.S. researchers believe cooling down vital organs may save countless lives from this sudden death. As it stands now, patients who suffer from cardiac arrest have about four to six minutes before irreversible brain damage occurs. But a report in the American Medical Association Journal says cooling the brain and the heart may temporarily protect cells from dying. A cooling system used on heart patients may give doctors about 15 minutes to save a patient's life. Human testing is still a few years away.