TheHimalalayan - Sharada Adhikari: Irena Mrak (42) je med sestopom izpod Makaluja omedlela a - po čudežu v bolnišnici spet oživela.
A miraculous survival
'Dead on arrival‚ but survived
KATHMANDU: She was “dead on arrival” at Vayodha Hospitals, Balkhu. When 42-year-old Slovenian citizen Erina Mrak had been airlifted to the hospital from Manang after she fainted while descending from Mt Makalu, she was “not alive”.
According to Dr Prakash Shrestha, Medical Registrar at the hospital, “there was no heart rate, respiration, oxygen saturation and even her pupils were dilated” as she was brought to the hospital at around 2:30 pm on October 24.
The professor at Geography department of a university in Slovenia had been on the mountain conducting her research about shrinking glaciers along with her friends when she faced this death-like experience.
“On that day, her friends had called me in Slovenia to inform that she had been complaining about difficulty in breathing and blurred vision. It was then that I felt something was seriously wrong,” recounted her husband Dr Tomaz Golsar. Dr Golsar, who also works in ICU, knew how bad her condition was — “you know what to expect as it is certain death in such a situation”.
Even her PH level — amount of acid in human blood — was just 6.8 (she had severe metabolic acidocis). Normally PH should be 7.35 to 7.45 in human blood, “below that is incompatible to life according to medical science”, as per Dr Shrestha.
But on October 28, she was all smiling and happy in the ward of the hospital waiting to be discharged.
According to Dr Shrestha as well as her husband, her survival is a “miracle” as Mrak has got a ‘second life’.
The doctors had told the visitors and patient’s party that she would most probably not revive despite them trying their best. Even Dr Goslar was almost certain that she would not make it.
However, thanks to quick response and “right treatment at the right time along with good team work”, it made the “miracle” possible. “We immediately started Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) while bringing her down from the hospital’s rooftop helipad to the emergency room,” informed Dr Shrestha, one of the members of the team involved in Mrak’s treatment led by Dr Shyam Bahadur Pandey.
Nearly 10-minute long resuscitation by compressing heart revived her — her heart showed some signs of recovery. Then intubation was done and the patient was moved to the ICU.
“Normally resuscitation is done for 30 minutes along with giving special medicine. If a person doesn’t revert to life even after that, we declare him/her dead.” But in case of Mrak, she was resuscitated for eight hours —10 minutes of heart compression and the rest of the time was used to maintain her blood pressure, PH level. This was because “she is young, her heart wasn’t completely flat and her heart showed some signs of recovery”.
Also she was given Bi-carbonate up to 1000 mcg continuously along with other treatments. And her pupils started reacting to light after 9:00 pm that day — a sign that she may come back to life.
They continued to let her stay on ventilator mode till the next morning when her body started responding. The next day they took out her from tube where she was fully conscious. And she has now been transferred to the ward of the hospital and undergoing treatment for High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) with retinal hemorrhage and septic shock from the ventilator.
Nonetheless, she has all recovered except for retinal haemorrhage “that has been causing problem in the vision in her right eye. It will also be cured soon. Normally there is very less chance for a patient to be back after CPR. But she is back,” added the doctor revealing that she will be discharged soon.
And the patient is happy too as she feels she “I would have been in the other side of the world, in the darkness”.
But she survived, which is why they have given her the name dead on arrival but survived.