Frozen boy’s chances held to be good

Press, 20 December 1985, Page 6

Frozen boy’s chances held to be good

NZPA-Reuter Columbus, Ohio A nine-year-old boy who was submerged in an icy farm pond for up to 45 minutes was in critical condition yesterday after being revived, doctors said. Jeremy Ghiloni, of Newark, Ohio, may be the latest example of a recently recognised phenomenon, in which cold-water drowning victims do not die because freezing temperatures slow the brain’s metabolism, lessening the need for oxygen. Some medical experts be-

lieve that submersion for up to an hour in very cold water may not necessarily result in death.

Doctors said that Jeremy may have suffered brain damage but the extent of his injuries would not be known until he was brought out of a coma induced by drugs to minimise brain damage. Jeremy was playing on an iced-over farm pond on Wednesday when he fell through. Children waiting nearby for a school bus went for help but the boy

may have been under water for between 20 to 45 minutes before he was pulled out. Doctors first put Jeremy on a heart by-pass machine to pump the cold blood out of his body and replace it with warmer blood, gradually bringing his body temperature back to normal. In a similar incident in Chicago in January, 1984, Jimmy Tontlewicz, aged four, was revived with similar techniques after 20 minutes in icy Lake Michigan after a sledge accident.