Young girl miraculously survives after being 'frozen'

A 19-year-old American girl, frozen in ice for 6 hours, woke up after doctors' efforts to warm her up. Science still cannot explain why the patient survived.

Early on the morning of December 20, 1980 in Minnesota, Wally Nelson happened to see his friend Jean Hilliard lying in the snow, just a few meters from his front door.

Hilliard's car stalled as she was returning to her parents' house after a night out. Wearing only a winter coat, gloves and cowboy boots, she got out of the car and, in the minus 30 degrees Celsius cold, sought help from a friend. Unfortunately, the student tripped and fell unconscious. For six hours, Hilliard's body was "frozen," according to witnesses.

"I grabbed her by the collar and pushed her onto the porch. I thought she was dead. Colder than a board, but I saw some bubbles coming out of Hilliard's nose," Nelson recalled years later in a Minnesota Public Radio interview.

Without Nelson's quick response, Hilliard might have become one of the thousands who die from hypothermia each year. Instead, her story has become part of medical lore and scientific curiosity.

How can someone survive being frozen? Stories of people coming back from the brink of death after being frozen, while shocking, are not uncommon. In fact, medical professionals in cold climates have a saying: “No one dies until they warm up and die.” That is, a hypothermic victim is resuscitated until their body warms up. If this attempt fails (even though the body has warmed up), the patient is declared dead.

What was striking about Hilliard was the extreme nature of her hypothermia. Doctors determined her core temperature was just 27 degrees Celsius, 10 degrees lower than a healthy person. She was clearly frozen. Her face was pale, her eyes were hard and glassy, and her skin was said to be too tough to be punctured by a needle.

According to George Sather, her doctor, her body was cold and completely stiff, like a piece of frozen meat. Yet within a few hours of being warmed by heating pads, Hilliard was back to normal. She was able to talk by noon that same day, with only numbness and blisters on her toes, and was discharged.

In a similar situation, the patient will be physically injured or permanently disabled.

Jean Hilliard, center, lies in a Fosston, Minn., hospital after her miraculous survival in December 1980. Photo: MPR News — Jean Hilliard, center, lies in a Fosston, Minn., hospital after her miraculous survival in December 1980. Photo: *MPR News*

For friends and family, Hilliard's miraculous survival is attributed to the power of prayer. However, it's hard to say how Hilliard's body resisted freezing. Was there something chemically unique about her body that made her more susceptible to freezing than others? A much more important question is what freezing meant in Hilliard's case.

Currently, science still has no exact explanation for this case, it can only be said that Hilliard's survival was lucky.

Still, the more we learn about the wonders the human body can achieve, the less we'll have to rely on luck to save the lives of people like Hilliard in the future.

America and Italy (According to Science Alert)

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