Arctic Sun Device Helps Prevent Brain Damage

WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) -- Every day a thousand people die and thousands more are left with brain injuries due to cardiac arrest. Now, thanks to a new technique that drops the body to arctic temperatures, heart patients are getting a second chance at life.

John Stewart has been teaching for 25 years; after school, you can find him running the chess club at Roberto Clemente Middle School. John is also an avid cyclist.

"I was starting to get up to 40-50 miles," he says. "I saw my neighborhood and said, 'See you around 3pm.' I got back a month and a half later."

John was biking in Rock Creek Park when the unthinkable happened.

"I had a heart attack," John explains. "It knocked me out instantly, and I passed out and just fell."

John's heart had stopped. Paramedics shocked him back to life with a defibrillator, but John was still unresponsive when he arrived at George Washington University Hospital. Dr. Allen Solomon says the biggest danger at that point was to Johns' blood-starved brain.

Dr. Solomon says, "The brain begins to die, and that's the most devastating consequence."

To keep that from happening, hospital staffers use a device called Arctic Sun to cool down the body fast. Gel pads are placed on the skin, and patients are sedated to prevent shivering as their body temperature drops near freezing. Dr. Solomon says that extreme cold can protect the brain from injury.

"We can cool patients for approximately 24 hours and slowly warm them back and improve brain function significantly," Solomon explains. "You can allow the brain time to recover."

John's family kept a bedside vigil while he was unconscious.

John says, "They wondered whether I had been affected or not and when I came to and whether my brain had survived in tact."

When John finally woke, he was the man his family, friends and students know and love. He has not had any trouble keeping a room full of young chess whizzes in check. "These characters keep you on edge, and you need to be sharp to do this," John says. "I am incredibly grateful that they used that technique."