Hacker News Reader

Comment by jobigoud | Hacker News Reader

> In a race against time, doctors treating Mrs Schoeman turned to a specialised machine capable of removing blood, infusing it with oxygen and reintroducing it to the patient.

> Once her body temperature had reached 30C, they used a defibrillator to jump-start her heart some six hours after emergency services were contacted.

> Mrs Schoeman was released from hospital 12 days later, with only some lingering issues with the mobility and sensitivity of her hands due to the hypothermia.

> How long her heart stopped for is not clear - she may still have had some circulation, although not detectable.

View on HN

Just out of curiosity - would one (say like a soldier) be able to effectively 'pre-emptively' wear a device in a backpack which has a permanent-ish lead to the circulatory system which does multiple things:

Provides a constant flow of oxygenated blood which allows for higher endurance, longer "holding of breath", and in the case of severe injury, oxygenated blood circulation to prevent death (unless there is catastrophic blood loss which moots the machine's ability)....

Recall all the famous designs of Cyborgs [and The Borg] with the tubes running into their face/head/nose - the tubes could be pumping externally oxygenated blood to the vitals which would suffer most in catastrophic physical unplanned destruction events.

It’s not practical. Patients on ECMO require anticoagulation, as do patients on cardiopulmonary bypass. This is a problem common to all systems which expose blood to foreign surfaces and pass it through pumps. Your hypothetical anticoagulated soldier with such a pump would bleed out lickety-split were they to suffer as much as a minor cut.

Also, such a system would likely require giant cannulae placed in rather inconvenient places, e.g., the neck, thigh, or chest, as in ECMO. That would limit movement significantly.

The U.S. military has already tried basically this twice.

Once back in the late 40's to for fighter pilots, and again in the 90's, a practice they called "Blood loading".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_doping

Peter F Hamilton's "Fallen Dragon" had a sub-plot along these lines. Some soldiers wore exo-suits-of-muscle that had access to valves embedded in the femoral and carotid arteries. The human inside was breathing for both themselves and the suit while hooked up. The suits could be disconnected and hooked up to a external rack that did circulation and respiration when not in use.

Where would the oxygenated blood come from? How much would the soldier have to carry? How do you protect this mechanism so that it's not also damaged in whatever unplanned destruction event broke the soldier?

I asked if it was possible, you are asking me for an RFP.

You made me chuckle.

Blood has been shown to oxygenate when passing in contact with semi permeable membrane with oxygen rich environment on the other side

This would probably work best as part of some kind of a powered exoskeleton.

Dick Cheney has (had?) no heart beat: https://www.livescience.com/33035-is-it-true-that-dick-chene...

In his case, the lungs are still working, but there's no scientific reason we don't have cyborg lungs yet.

> has (had?)

Had. The article is from 2011; according to Wikipedia "On March 24, 2012, Cheney underwent a heart transplant procedure", "he remained alive without a pulse for nearly fifteen months." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney#Health_problems

/Tinfoil

I am convinced that Cheney is the reason Barnaby Jack was murdered.

Jack knew how to remotely attack pacemakers, as well as pumps and other medical devices and was to speak at BlackHat... but was neutralized just days prior...

/Tinfoil

Reply on news.ycombinator.com