4 1/2 Minutes of Death

Wounded in the thigh, Red Army Private Valentin Cherepanov lost so much blood that he died. The attending surgeon certified: "Death following shock and acute hemorrhage . . . at 14:41."

Three and a half minutes later, a team of doctors headed by Moscow's famed Vladimir Negovski went to work. A forcible blood injection raised Cherepanov's blood pressure. After one minute his heart began to beat. He breathed in three minutes, became conscious in an hour. Soon, hale & hearty, Cherepanov was on medical display.

Negovski, the doctor who engineered the revival (and who has the resounding title: director of the Laboratory of Experimental Physiology of Moscow's All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine) had clone the same thing with dogs. After years of experiments with Pulmotors and blood transfusions, he and his associates have revived dogs that have been dead for six, ten, and even 15 minutes./-

The American Review of Soviet Medicine, which reported Cherepanov's new lease on life, stated that there have been 51 such revivals among Red Army wounded. Twelve lived on out of danger and 39 died again from their severe organic injuries. The constant danger in such revivals: when a man has been dead too long, nerves and brain are injured. Dogs revived after being dead for more than six minutes are often blind or dimwitted.

/-Negovski considers that death occurs with the last agonal breath. He admits that weak, incomplete heart contractions may take place later, but points out that such contractions are not sufficient to raise blood pressure or to make blood circulate. Most doctors agree that when heart and lungs stop functioning, death is a fact. But even this rule is not hard & fast, since medical men have never accurately defined death.

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