Audrey Schoeman is a 34-year-old British woman who currently resides in Barcelona. Last month, she was hiking with her husband in the Spanish Pyrenees when they were caught in a snowstorm. It was then that she experienced a health emergency. She went into cardiac arrest and her heart stopped for six hours, according to Today.
Most physicians would expect Schoeman to be dead today, but in fact, she is alive and thriving. Medical experts are shocked by her seemingly miraculous survival, saying that this sort of situation is practically unheard of.
Dr. Eduard Argudo explained to reporters that there were a very specific set of circumstances that saved Schoeman’s life. Because of the snowstorm, she was enduring severe hypothermia that lowered her body’s temperature drastically. This help preserve her brain, keeping her from becoming brain dead.
“It’s an exceptional case in the world. If she had been in cardiac arrest for this long at a normal body temperature, she would be dead. She looked as though she was dead. But we knew that, in the context of hypothermia, Audrey had a chance of surviving,” recalled Dr. Argudo.
Schoeman only spent two weeks in the hospital before moving on with her life. She is primarily healthy with no neurological damage, which would typically be expected in this case. She doesn’t remember anything from the six hours she spent nearly dead.
Schoeman understands that her case is very rare and that she’s lucky, but she also wants to give credit where credit is due.
“It’s like a miracle except that it’s all because of the doctors,” she told reporters.
Most people that have endured a harrowing experience such as the one that Schoeman went through might be scared away from hiking for awhile. However, she has no such plans and intends to get back to her hobby by the time that spring comes.
“I don’t want this to take away that hobby from me,” she said.
This bizarre case actually helps doctors find new ways to treat future patients who are in cardiac arrest. In fact, doctors have actually started using intentional hypothermia to preserve brain function in patients experiencing heart failure.
In many cases, mental deterioration is one of the primary worries in the case of heart failure. When popular actress Carrie Fisher died in 2016 from cardiac arrest, America was reminded once again of how quickly this can take effect, as The Inquisitr previously reported. Factors that often play a role in cardiac issues are smoking, obesity, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.