National Park After Dark - Frozen Alive in the Scandinavian Mountains

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

We head into the beautiful mountain ranges of Norway and follow a survival story that seems impossible. When a woman has a ski accident, her body temperature plummets to a degree never recorded in a living person before. Medical professionals investigate how she could survive and in the process make huge advancements in medicine.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Upside: Download the free app and use code NPAD to get $5 or more cash back on your first purchase of $10 or more.   Two Girls One Ghost: Tune in this spooky season and beyond to Two Girls One Ghost wherever you listen to podcasts. HelloFresh: Use our link and code NPAD65 for 60% off plus free shipping. For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Close your eyes. Listen to Monday.com. Feel the sensation of an AI work platform. So flexible and intuitive, it feels like it was built just for you. Now open your eyes, go to Monday.com. Start for free and finally, breathe. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear open that envelope? It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Survival stories have caught the attention of people for years.

Hearing the stories of the willpower people have to survive in some of the most grueling circumstances is inspiring. When we hear the story of someone who fights their way away from an animal or treads through hundreds of miles of wilderness with little supply and survives, we begin to imagine ourselves in that scenario. Would we survive? How would we do it? What choices would we make? But what about those situations that we can't make decisions about? What about circumstances? What about circumstances? of extreme medical phenomenon. A person who survived something that, from a medical standpoint, is impossible. Today, we're going to believe in the impossible, because today, we're going to find out

what it's like to be frozen alive. Welcome to National Park After Dark. You got me on the hook. I'll tell you that right now. I'm invested. It's a really interesting story that we're going to talk about today. And we're going to a country that is super high on my list. I so badly want to go to Norway. And that's where we're going today. Oh, is that? Okay. It's all making sense because Cassie sent me like three or four pictures of Norway between yesterday and earlier today and said, and I quote, if we don't go to Norway, I will riot. which, and I quote, Danielle responded with, we have way too much stuff we're doing. We're going to all these places.

And if you keep doing this, I will riot. That is true. I did say that. Okay. Well, so I am very unfamiliar with Norway. I actually only know one person who's ever been on vacation to Norway. So I'm very interested to learn more about it. And the story, because someone's getting frozen and living, I'm assuming.

Yeah. And this is a survival story, which, as we've kind of said before, we just like survival stories because we know that there's kind of a decent outcome. But the story I'm telling you is just so wild and there's so much information. But first, we're going to talk a little bit about Norway. And I do want to say I have stretched this episode a lot to be a National Park After Dark episode because I really just wanted to tell this. story. So the story itself, I don't think actually takes place inside of a national park, but Norway

itself is made up of so many national parks for such a small area. The whole country is pretty much a national park and this area has a lot of protected areas and there is a national park that's right outside of it. So we're going to talk a little bit about the national parks of Norway. Although, although, asterisk. The story has nothing to do with a national park. This is, okay, this is what we'll do. I'm feeling gracious, and I just got the best idea. Okay.

Because I know what it feels like to find a story that you're like, shit, this is so interesting. But I don't think I can tell it because it's not related to a national park, even if it's, you know, outdoor adjacent. And I feel like we should give ourselves one episode a year that is just like a free-for-all. I love that. So you're cashing yours in right now. Cashing mine in. In September, so in a couple more months, I can do this again. Yeah, there you go.

There you go. Okay, that's it. It's it. That's perfect. We can just throw one in. But I mean, this is wildly in the outdoors. There are protected areas around it. And to be fair, to be fair.

In all of my research, I looked so hard to pinpoint the exact location this happened in, and I could not find it. So maybe it's in a national park. I'm going to guess it's not, but that's not. It's not. It's not. It's definitely not. But it's in a really cool area. And yeah, I'm just going to tell you about it because we're going to go to the Scandinavian mountains, which are the largest mountain range in Europe. And they extend over 1,095 miles, which is 1,762 kilometers in length. And this mountain range covers almost the entire territory of Norway. So if you look at a map, Norway is all mountains. And it's pretty much all of this. And then it also extends. And then it also extends. into Sweden. And actually, this mountain range is on the Sweden-Norway border. So it crosses over to both sides. So the story also, I'm going to talk about places in Sweden and in Norway.

Gotcha. And something really cool about Norway. I'm just like, I feel like I actually just made this episode so I could put together a bunch of things that would convince you to go here with me. So this area of Norway is so far north that they experience what is called the Midnight. night sun where 76 days between May and July, the sun never sets. Okay, so I'm being bullied to go to Norway is what's happening. I'm just saying if you want some sunshine. Norway is a place to go, but it's really cool because you know you go to go watch a sunset. And here you stand on the coast and you can, you are the sun is so far north that the sun actually just circles above you. It's so wild. That is pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We're getting.

there we're chipping away you're shipping away she's interested we're going okay hi we are certainly not going anywhere other than our outline trips we're booked for a year so Norway 2024 right 2025 well fun fact is that the weather there right now is beautiful and it's aurora borealis season there so it's like 65 during the day 60 during the day you can go hiking and the sun's sets right around the same time as it does here. And then you get the northern lights all night. Okay. So in two years, in September 1st of 2025, I'll remember that. 25? What about 24? I don't know. I'm giving myself a cushion. Well, I'm just saying I don't have any plans, September 2023. Yeah, you do. Is that this year? Oh, no. That's next year. I'm like,

you're going to Greece in a week. Yes, you do. Yes. I mean, Honestly, I've been like, could I extend my trip? I'm not that far because I have a layover in Denmark. But anyway, we're getting a little off track. We're going off the rails. So a main feature when you visit this area of Norway is their fjords. And the fjords are defined by mountains, cliffs, and peaks that are sitting within deep, narrow sea inlets. So typically they are formed from glaciated valleys. And the Scandinavian mountains have a total of one. 141,726 peaks. So it's a massive, massive mountain range. And it's really, they're really interesting because when you look at them, if you Google a photo of Norway right now and you see these mountains, you would think they're comparable to mountains in Colorado or in Alaska. Be like, these mountains are massive.

But they look this away and they look so dramatic because you're starting at legit sea level. You're at the sea. And then these fjords and mountains extending from that just shoot straight up. So it's super steep. And the tallest one only sits at 8,100 feet or 2,469 meters. But they just look so much more dramatic because of the level that they're starting from. Yeah. And not to say 8,000 feet isn't a lot.

I mean, the tallest mountain in New Hampshire is just over six. But when you look at them and they're all, and you have all the snow caps and things, I just, I know when I looked at it and I heard it was only that tall. I was like, oh, I thought it would have been like a 14 or like in Colorado. Yeah, they just look a lot more dramatic. And I would know because I've been inundated with photos of them all day. It's true. Screenshot your text or text as the Instagram post.

Oh, yeah. And the Scandinavian Mountains have a different name depending on where you are because it is in Norway and it is in Sweden. So they do speak different languages. And the Norway range is known as the Sholan Mountains. And in Sweden, they're known as the Skindirna mountains. This mountain range is also really cool in how I'm tying this into national parks is because in Norway, there are 47 national parks in this mountain range.

And in Sweden, there are 17 national parks. Okay. All right. I see where you're trying to really weave it together. And I will say, I don't know, maybe I'll. Maybe I'll continue with the story. I'll listen to the story and probably. Thank you.

I appreciate that. Well, not only that will I do that. But I'll also determine at the end whether or not this is truly your cash in. Because if it really is, you know, that close to. I'm talking like a story that you've always been really interested in and wanted to tell, but it doesn't have anything to do with like a national park. You know what I'm saying? So you're saying I'm tying it into national parks like.

pretty decently. Like enough, enough to not warrant a total, I'm talking, I don't know, the, that molasses flood in Boston that I was talking to you about that I wanted to cover. Oh, yeah. It's like that has nothing to do with the National Park or the outdoors. But it's interesting. But it's an interesting story. Maybe we need a second podcast.

We absolutely do not need an extra podcast. No, thank you. This is good. I'm good with this. Okay. This is fine. No, remember we already have a side one, my science and synchronicities podcast.

Right. Did we talk about that on Patreon or here? I don't remember. I don't know if we ever talked about it on the podcast, but now you're indebted to everyone listening. So. Okay, let's move on. Let's move on.

Okay, so there's a lot of national parks. It's not in one, but it's close enough, and that's why you chose it. Yes. That's health. So that's what we've been talking about for the last 15. minutes. Yes. So part of why there are so many national parks in this region is because there is something known as the Scandinavian Mountains Green Belt that is located here. And this is referring to the intact mountain forest landscape that extends throughout the entire mountain range. There have been significant conservation efforts in this region to save it from logging. And this mountain's green belt is all full forests that have never been touched. So part of this reason that there's national parks is people have been picking locations and preserving them.

Okay, makes sense. And I did read a research article that explained exactly why it was important. And it's a research article from landscape ecology and in their conclusion of their study. They wrote, given its ecological values, the Scandinavian Mountains Green Belt is a key entity supporting ecological legacies, boreal biodiversity and ecosystem services, resilience in adaptive capacity, which needs to be safeguarded for the future. On the very large areas outside the mountain region, forest lands are severely fragmented, connectivity values are lost, and forest landscape restoration is needed for conservation and functional green infrastructure. So it's basically just saying that this is so

important for our climate now and also in the future. And where our story that does take place today, as I mentioned, I don't think it's within a national park, but there are actually three national parks that border this area. So I picked the one that was technically the closest. And we are going to talk about the national park. It is in Sweden. It's called Abisco National Park. Now this national park is in northern Sweden. It's in the province of Lapland, which is close to Norway's border. And in inside the Scandinavian mountain range. It was established as a national park in 1909 and it was created directly after Sweden passed

their first laws of conservation. In 1903, several years before that, the Abysco Scientific Research Station was created here whose research directly led to it earning the status of a national park. So they conducted ecological, geological, geomorphological, geo, geo- and meteorological research I know so much. All the geos. Yeah, all the geos. All the geos, all the logicles. And they were doing this research in sub-arctic environments, which made part of their research so important for this location. And the park is pretty small. It comes in at only 30 square miles, which is 77 square kilometers, but contains one of Sweden's largest lakes and is also one of the best places in Sweden to see the northern lights.

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This park is located within the Arctic Circle and has frozen terrain in parts of the park year round. It does contain a very popular hiking trail that follows the Scandinavian Mountain Range, known as the Kung Slidden Hiking Trail, and extends 270 miles or 440 kilometers, and it is popular for people to hike, snowshoe, cross-country, ski and provides the opportunity for winter sports. They have the backcountry skiing and free riding, which is extremely popular, and it brings people here and the surrounding areas year round, and they also have their own ski resort. Now, my story today is still in the Scandinavian mountain ranges bordering this area, but we're heading over just a little bit to the Norway side.

I'm going to be telling you the story of Anna Baganholm, who survived the lowest body temperature ever recorded after a skiing accident. Okay. Anna Baganholm was originally from Sweden, but after working as a radiologist, she decided to pursue a career as an orthopedic surgeon, and she moved to a town called Narvik Norway to complete her residency. In May of 1998, at the age of 29 years old, she was working as an assistant surgeon at the Narvik Hospital.

And part of what drew her to this area is Narvik is renowned for their skiing. In fact, this place has really been known to. be a skier's paradise. It sits along the coast between mountains and fjords and it has a dramatic increase in elevation from the coastline. Narvec is home to ski resorts and it has a ton of backcountry skiing. Plus their weather like pretty much year round is almost perfect for skiing all the time. Anna had been skiing her entire life and she was considered an expert skier and she often would leave the resorts and head into the backcountry to find like the good powder. and not be on the groomed stuff.

Sounds like you. Sometimes, maybe. On May 20th, 1999, Anna left for the backcountry of the Jolin Mountain Ranges with two colleagues of hers, Marie and Torvind. They were all very good skiers

and they had adventured into the back country before and they knew these trails very well. This particular day was a beautiful spring day. It was very sunny. There wasn't much wind and it was great spring temperatures.

It was almost 6.6. degrees, which is 15 degrees Celsius in the sun, and the ice around them was melting. So the conditions here seemed pretty perfect for like a spring ski day. They spent a few hours up in the mountains, and it was all going well until one run where Anna ended up falling. They had picked a line down the mountainside, and Torvind went first. Anna followed him and was doing well, but she hit a patch of ice in a steep area and started sliding out of control. During this quick moment, she crashed into a rock, and then this crash caused her to fall down onto her back. The slope that she was on was really steep, so when she fell, she continued to slide down the ice on her back.

What she hadn't realized at the time was that she was actually sliding down a frozen stream. As she was attempting to slow herself down, she suddenly broke through the ice with her head and chest being submerged first into the water. As her clothes and gear became wet, it became super heavy and weighed her body down. After only a few moments with the weight of her clothing and the movement of the water, she was dragged under. She tried to pick herself up, but there was too much weight on her, and she found herself not only submerged in the water, but she was dragged underneath seven inches of ice.

Oh, God. When Marie and Troven saw what happened, they got to her as quickly as they could. The water was dragging her further under, but her feet were still sticking out from the ice. They both grabbed onto her legs and they pulled as hard as they could. But with the current of the water, along with how heavy she was now, they couldn't pull her out no matter how much they tried.

Anna had somehow found a small air pocket underneath the ice that she was able to get her head into and breathe. Okay, that was my first question. I was like, is she totally submerged at this point and she can't breathe or what's going on? So she's not fully sucked under. Her friends have her legs, but they can't get her out of this hole that she's in now. Because the current is going underneath the ice. The current's going.

She's super heavy. And from what I read, it sounds like what she fell into was a pretty small hole. So it's not like you can just pick someone out. You have to maneuver them back out the way they came. And now she's super heavy. She has all of her gear on still too. She has her skis on. She's got her snow pants on.

But now she's soaked. And she's weighted down and she's being dragged. Mm-hmm. But now she's. found the small air pocket that was just in the ice and she can she's underwater but she can breathe. As this happened, Torvin and Marie kept a hold of her legs so she wouldn't be dragged any further and they could keep her in the same spot where she was so she could keep breathing. After just seven minutes, her friends called in for a rescue team, but they were so far in the backcountry and the closest rescue

teams were 200 miles away and they were notified that it would take them another 40 minutes to arrive. Suspended upside down and breathing through the small air pocket, Anna was able to stay conscious in the freezing cold water. However, after 40 minutes of being in this icy water, Anna went into circulatory arrest. This happens when the body is so cold that your body no longer pumps any blood throughout your body. As this happened, Anna felt unconscious. When rescue teams arrived, Anna's friends were still holding onto her legs to keep her from being dragged away. When the teams arrived, they saw just how difficult it was going to be to get Anna out. And first they tried to pull her out with a rope. But with the angle that she was caught in under the ice, along with the pressure from the

stream and the small hole that she had fallen through, they weren't able to pull her out by the rope. Next, they tried to break the ice with a garden shovel. But with seven inches thick of ice on top of her, it just wasn't strong enough to break through it. Soon, a second team arrived, and they brought with them a pointed shovel, which was able to cut a hole. through the ice. Anna had been trapped underneath the ice for 80 minutes before they got her out, and she had stopped breathing for 40. When they pulled her out from the water, she was completely white. She had no blood circulating through her body. She was ice cold to the touch, and she wasn't breathing. Two doctors who were aboard the rescue helicopter switched off between performing CPR along with Anna's two

friends. When they hooked her up to the ECG to measure any signs that her heart was working, she completely flatlined. The rescue team made the decision that despite all of the signs that she was not alive, they would continue to perform CPR and try to warm her body over the long one-hour flight to the University Hospital of North Norway, Tremoso. The team had been in communication with the head of the emergency medicine department at the hospital, Dr. Mads Gilbert. He was ready and waiting for them as they arrived on the helipad.

Recalling this moment later on, Dr. Mads Gilbert explained the moment he saw Anna for the first time. He said, she has completely dilated pupils. She is ashen, flaxen white, she's wet, she's ice cold when I touch her, and she looks absolutely dead. On the ECG, which the doctor on the helicopter has connected her to, there is a complete flat line. Like you could have drawn it with a ruler, no signs of life whatsoever. And the decision was made. We will not declare her dead until she is warm and dead. Dr. Gilbert was hoping that the amount of CPR that was given to her on the helicopter ride would have given her just enough oxygen that her brain and her other organs would not shut down.

It was looking really bad, though. When they took her temperature, they found out her core body temp was only at 56 degrees, which is 13.7 degrees Celsius. And if in reference to that, we know a normal body temperature sits at 98.6 degrees, which is 37 degrees Celsius. Yeah, this is insane. This is insane. No one in recorded history has ever been that cold for as long as she had been and survived. Still, even with all of this information, they had hope that when her body was warmed up, she could somehow still be alive. They rushed her into an emergency operating room and began the process of warming her blood. Now, the way they did this was they attached her to a cardiopulmonary bypass machine. These machines are used to temperate. take over the function of the heart and the lungs. During this procedure, the chest is opened up under anesthesia, and they also put an ECG probe down her esophagus to measure any heart activity. They use this machine to manually circulate blood through her body and slowly warm it up at the same time. It had to be

slow process. If they warmed her body up too quickly, her body could go back into shock. If she was still alive, warming her up too quickly could cause heart arrhythmias and then heart failure. and she would die. As they slowly increased her body's temperature, the surgeon stood around her waiting for any signs of life. It had been almost three hours since her heart had beat last, and they had been warming her blood for over an hour and a half. Dr. Gilbert was standing completely still, watching for any signs of movement in her heart, but there was nothing. Then he saw some small shivering of the heart, but there were still no filtration happening of her blood. And then, all of the sudden, in one big whoosh, it contracted.

There was a pause for a few more seconds, followed by a second whoosh. And again, and again, and her heart was beating. Cheers rang out in the operating room. The doctors and nurses tried to hold back their tears as they watched her heart working again. In the history of medicine, this had never happened before. This fight was far from over, though. Now they had to wait to see what damage her body had something. suffered. As the crispy chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like,

yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me and baby I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm just $4. Quiet, no. Krispy, saucy, and $4? Very. Only at 7-Eleven. Valley 36-22326, participating stores only well supplies lastly out for full terms. Anna was moved to the critical care unit under complete 24-hour observation. Anna's heart was still not beating on its own. It was having the help of the bypass machine,

and during this period, her lung function deteriorated and she needed assistance to breathe. It wasn't until 12 days later that Anna woke up. When she woke up, she was still not able to breathe on her own, and she remained on a ventilator for 35 days. When she did wake up, she woke up paralyzed from the neck. down. She had suffered severe damage to her nervous system. Along with this, her kidneys and her digestive system were failing. But miraculously, there had been no signs of brain injury at all. That was my first question was how was her brain? It would be the first thing you think being

without oxygen for 80 minutes. I mean, they were doing CPR and things like that, but, you know, it's just, it's such a long time. Yeah. And when Anna woke up, she was fully conscious and aware of what was going on and actually one of her first reactions is she was really angry. Her first reaction was that she was really angry at her friends and the rescue team. She felt that they had gone through this extraordinary length to make sure she survived this accident while she woke up paralyzed from the neck down. She's like, why would you do this? I have no chance of a fulfilling life now. I'm going to be suffering. And she was just flat out angry and she voiced it very much so. She was just like, why Why is this? Why? And the doctors, though, they had hopes that everything she was going through

could be reversed. Because she didn't actually have a spinal injury in her accident, they believed that over time her nervous system would repair itself and she would be able to walk again. When she could breathe on her own and was relatively stable, she was moved to a rehab facility where they worked on trying to get her to gain use of her body below her neck. They also spent this time to monitor and help her kidneys and digestive system recover. She was in the rehabilitation for four months, and when she left, she was able to walk again. And although it took years to fully recover, six years after the incident, she was back skiing on the mountain.

That's absolutely incredible. I mean, it's just, I mean, of course, as you mentioned, it's the first time in recorded history that that has happened. And not only for her to be revived, brought back to life at the very basic level of even just, you know, at that point, you're wondering, is she going to be in a vegetative state? Like, yes, she may be alive and revived, but is she going to be a vegetable? What type of limitations is she going to have? What type of brain damage, bodily damage, like you mentioned? And then for her to just totally blow past all of those potential roadblocks and get back to her life as it was before physically. I'm sure she'll never ever be the same mentally emotionally, you know, in her heart.

But physically to be able to get back on skis, even if it was six years later, that is absolutely incredible. Absolutely incredible. And it is why this has been such a topic that has been discussed her case because you look at it at a hole and she was underwater, not breathing. I mean, she wasn't breathing for 80 minutes before anyone started CPR on her. Well, and that's kind of, it begs the question, which I'm sure has been posed many, many times. It's kind of like, when do you call it? When do you draw that line of, you know, like that doctor had mads, that doctor, I think, I got right? When... That was his first name, his, uh, doctor. Dr. Gilbert. Oh, Dr. Gilbert. Dr. Mads Gilbert. When he mentioned her appearance upon presentation

to the hospital of essentially he was looking at a dead body, you know, at what point I don't have, I guess I never, ever really thought about it in that context of when do you stop trying? Is there a certain set of parameters in place? Because you think, you know, if something happens and say she fell underwater, like a total different circumstance, but say she was ice- She fell underwater. Her friends got her out pretty immediately, began CPR, but she was flatlined. They got her immediately to the hospital and they tried life-saving measures. That is pretty immediately after. But in this case, obviously, it's significantly different. I guess my question is, and it's not in any way to insinuate that they shouldn't have tried. It's more of so a genuine question of what, do you know,

what made them even continue attempts at that point? It's really interesting that you, say that because this entire case brought up a huge debate and also a big thing with medicine of when, when do you call it, especially in hypothermia patients. And their whole thing of why they kept trying was they were like clinically, by all means, she's dead. I mean, there's literally nothing. We can't find a pulse. She's flatlined. But they were like, her temperature is so cold right now. we can't say that she is dead without making her warm first, without bringing her back to her regular body temperature. And that seems like it was the theme. It was like, we don't think this is going to work, but her body is so cold and we know that no one can survive like this. Let's try and warm her up and see what happens.

Very interesting. Very, very interesting. Yeah. And I was going to say like this is totally not the direction you went, obviously. But when you said initially when she regained consciousness and she was angry, right after you said that, my first thought was, I mean, I've watched and read many near-death experience accounts. And a lot of people who experience a near-death experience, they describe a lot of times that their initial emotion when they're brought back into their bodies is that they're angry. But because, not because of physical limitations like she experienced. like she was paralyzed and she's angry at her physical state, but because what they experienced and what they claimed to experience on the quote unquote other side was so beautiful and they didn't want

to be brought back into their bodies. So I thought you were going into a different direction of she had a near-death experience and she was angry that she was revived here in this world. I actually looked really hard to find if there was a story like that because there's so many stories of people who almost die and then they come back. Like I remember there was this one, maybe it was like on I survived or something where she was in a kayaking incident where she was underwater for a really long time. She had drowned. She was clinically dead. And they brought her back. And she has vivid memories of the entire thing. So when I saw that she had been clinically dead for hours, I was like maybe she had this experience. And maybe she did. And it's just not published anywhere.

But that was one of the first thing I looked for. That story that you just described is the first episode of surviving death on Netflix. Oh, okay. Yep. Because I remember that woman, she was, yeah, she was in, I think, South America somewhere kayaking when that happened to her. And she went on to say, I mean, I have the goosebumps thinking of it now, but she went on to say, remember later in the episode that her teenage son passed away

and as shattered and heartbroken as she is, she finds. she finds comfort in her experience. And she claims she's like, you know, I know that there's more to life. And I know what I experience. And I know my son is somewhere and he's okay. It doesn't change my grief right now. But if what I experienced is real, my son is okay. Yeah. It was like a comfort. Yes. Yes. So that's, I know exactly what story you're talking about. But anyway. So. And she was kind of the story that I was like, well, maybe there's a story in here. And I'm not, I'm definitely not saying there's not. I just, I couldn't find it when I was looking. And because what I found in most articles is after hearing this absolutely wild story that is so hard to explain, because according to medicine, this is impossible, people started trying to figure out why did she survive? What in her circumstances made it so that she could survive this when no one else on record has ever survived a body temperature this cold?

And to go further than that, so many other people have died under way less extraneous circumstances. Mm-hmm. And Dr. Gilbert had a reason for it. Okay. So he says that what likely happened was that because she found that pocket of air and she was able to breathe for 40 minutes. Her body was actually cooling down that entire time slowly.

and because her body had time to cool down before her heart stopped, that by this time after this 40-minute period, her brain had also gotten so cold that when her heart stopped beating, her brain cells and her other cells within her body no longer needed much oxygen. This caused her brain to be able to survive for a long period of time because it had gone into this dormant state. So her body had almost gone into this hibernation.

of it and it was just using oxygen that she had already gotten into her body. And since this incident, doctors in Norway specifically, but it is used around the world, have used a therapy, but they use it more in Norway now because of what happened to her. And it's called therapeutic hypothermia. And this is used in patients who go into cardiac arrest, who are losing the blood flow to their organs. So they lower their core body temperature under surgery to prevent injury to their organs and prolong the periods of times that they can survive without oxygen. And it's kind of a way to preserve all their other vital organs while they're operating on their heart. Very interesting. I love medicine. It's so wild. It's just amazing. I mean, it's, I will say, it's different when you're experiencing it.

And it's your person. It's not so fascinating in that way. But In general, I still hold that. It's just the advances that medicine makes through situations like this are just truly amazing. That's how we move forward is by learning from situations like this. And what year was this the 90s, you said? Yeah, this was in 99. Okay.

That this started. And like, I mean, like you said, the medical advancements are so interesting and they're so, I mean, I guess from my own personal medical. experience because I have had two kidney transplants and I wouldn't be alive without them. Kidney transplants didn't start until 1954 and they started at Brigham's Hospital in Boston with a pair of identical twins who one of them was in kidney failure and they said, well, you have an identical twin that theoretically has an extra part. We could try and save their life by doing this and it was completely experimental.

It was just they had a theory, wanted to see if it would work. And it did. And now, like, crazy enough is there actually coming up on their one millionth transplant? Holy shit. That really took off. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's between kidneys, livers, lungs, hearts, like everything. Because someone decided only in 1954 that, why don't we try this?

Why don't we see if we can save people? So it is like these crazy innovations that people think of or people discover because of an accident or something that just sparks this whole new way of medicine. So they are using that a little bit more. And this has also sparked medical personnel to take much more cautious measures when announcing hypothermia victims deceased. So kind of how you mentioned before, where do you draw the line? they kind of decided you don't in hypothermia until you have warmed them up and given them time. They have since this accident decided that you treat them like they're alive and you try and resuscitate them.

And Dr. Gilbert actually had a statement about this as well. And he said, Victims of very deep accidental hypothermia with circulatory arrest should be seen as a potentially recessible with a prospect of full recovery. The key success factors of such marginal resuscitation efforts are early bystander actions with vigorous CPR and early warnings of emergency system. Early dispatch of adequate rescue units, ground and air ambulances, and good coordination between the resources outside and inside the hospital. Aggressive rewarming and a spirit to not give up. So the whole protocol of how to treat and care for hypothermic patients has really shifted since, her case. And he's really just saying, you know, if you have someone who's, he's definitely in that

statement giving a ton of credit to Anna's friends and the rescue personnel that came on and was like, well, you know, she looks like this isn't going well, but we're just going to, I mean, they gave her continuous CPR until she was on a ventilator, even in the hospital, walking down the hallway, I saw an interview, they were like, down the hallway, we continued chest compressions the entire way. We were giving her oxygen from the moment we got her, of the water until the moment that she was, we were able to get her on a machine. And he's clearly stating in that that that's huge for saving hypothermia patients and to, if you have a situation like this, call a rescue team immediately. Wow. Anna's case has made history and it has been

published in medical journals. And in anesthesiologist at the University of North Norway has stated that Anna's case has shown a very important lesson and she essentially just said that it's really important not to give up on patience when odds seem impossible because there is always hope. Today, the shovel that broke through the ice remains on the mountainside in Narvik hanging from a tree next to the stream as a testament to the possible. Oh, that's special. It's like a little memorial but not because no one died. No one died. And it's just like a here. is a reminder that anything's possible and not to give up. And today, Anna is working as a senior radiologist consultant at the same hospital that saved her life. Came full circle. So she went back

there. Came full circle. She's helping people at the hospital that helped her. And I did read. It's interesting. It said over the time period that she was there, hundreds of nurses and doctors were caring for her because she was such a critical patient that, and she needed literally someone there 24 hours a day, that there were hundreds of people who helped her. And she went back later to thank them. And also to apologize because, like I said, she was very vocal when she first woke up of how she was pissed that they saved her. And now she says she's very happy and that she apologized to everyone for her initial reaction

of yelling at everyone, essentially. Well, that's very kind of her, but I think everyone understands. Yeah. I think they're like, we get it. And she has also, she's gone on to give many interviews to help increase the awareness of hypothermia. She has gone around to share her story so that she can get out to as many people as possible, that there are possibilities of survival in hypothermia victims and that they should be treated that way. If you look her up, you can find many videos of her.

You can find a lot of interviews she's done. I mean, the story went very viral. It's in so many articles, but she does a lot of interviews. And it's really cool how much has changed in medicine because of her incident. Wow. That's awesome. I approve of your off the rails, off script, not on brand, but still kind of on brand story. Stamp of approval.

There it is. I'll accept it. So does that mean I get a different story to go off the rails or was this off the rails? one. No, no, I think that you still have one to cash in. Oh, cool. Yeah. I brought in the national park thing. Yeah, like you still even described a park. I feel like the one that is the free for all really could be anything. You don't have to mention national park once. Okay. I hope people are okay with this. It's like, hey, you know, that show that is all about national parks, we're going to do a story that has absolutely nothing to do with national parks. And I feel like you're going to have to be one of our

bonus Thursday episodes. Like we can't just make it our like mainstream Monday episode. It's going to have to be a bonus Thursday one. So like there's a national park one this week, don't worry. But we also have this off the rails story as well. Okay. That that works. I think that's fair. It's in the works. And it's just once a year

for each of us. It's just two a year. Yeah. Yeah. It's fine. All right. Well, anyway. We'll find out. All right. Well, thank you for listening to my story. If you guys are still here. Yeah, they're like, all right. We always, I don't know how. We got to, we're coming on a year and a half, a little over a year and a half. We have to figure out a way to wrap it up, you know, like at the end, because we kind of just look at each other and just like rock back and forth.

We're like, and anyways. Enjoy the beauty. But watch you're back. All right, bye guys. Later. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Become an outsider by joining our Patreon where you'll gain access to monthly bonus stories and exclusive content.

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