Boy Survives After Body Temp Plunges to 55 Degrees

Doctors are calling it a miracle
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 5, 2014 6:31 AM CST
Boy Survives After Body Temp Plunges to 55 Degrees
Stock image.   (Shutterstock)

"It’s the only case of its kind in the world," says a doctor at a Polish children's hospital. "The child has come back to the world of the living." Krakow doctor Janusz Skalski is talking about little Adas (also reported as Adam), a 2-year-old who wandered away from his grandma's house at some point on Saturday night—while the temperature was just 19 degrees Fahrenheit. He may have been outside for several hours before being found early Sunday, the BBC reports. Police found him facedown in leaves near a creek wearing only socks and a pajama top; the unconscious boy's core body temperature was 54.9 degrees Fahrenheit and his heart was beating once every few dozen seconds.

So doctors—who were worried about possible brain damage—kept him in an artificial coma until Wednesday. As of yesterday, he's talking, playing, and eating normally, and though he probably has pneumonia, doctors believe he's otherwise unscathed and even escaped frostbite, AFP reports. "I'm quite confident to call this a miracle," says Skalski. "We're communicating with the boy, inasmuch as you can communicate with a 2-year-old—he's a smart child." His father suspects the boy may have been sleepwalking, the AP reports, and Skalski says Adas will need some rehab therapy. A hypothermia expert says this case is even more dramatic than the previous record: a Scandinavian woman who recovered after her body temperature dropped to 56.7 degrees Fahrenheit. (This miracle toddler survived falling 11 stories.)

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