How long does it take to die from drowning?
Here is the text I'm having trouble with (from Foundations of Legal Research and Writing 5th Edition by Bast and Hawkins):
To their horror, they saw two bodies in the deep end of the pool. They all jumped into the pool and pulled out the bodies. The two women tried to revive Joseph and Phil while the two men called the police and fire departments. When they arrived, the police and firefighters joined the Andersons and the Cookes in trying to revive the two boys. The two boys were rushed to the hospital but died a few hours later.
A few hours later? Is that plausible (realistic)?
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As far as I know it depends on how much damage it has been done to the brain firstly and the other organs.
Usually the first cells to die in the brain are those located in hypotalamus and they start dying within 3 minutes and as the lack of oxygen progresses other brain cells die to.
The last important organ that is heart starts dying at 15 minutes. So probably if you rescue the person now and start CPR it will live but with brain damage(the worst here being a vegetative state due to major brain damage).
Also another big factor in cell death is the metabolic rate of cells which slows down considerably in very cold water temp. In my uni Emergency book it is said that people could stay drowmed in cold water for up to 45 m and live.
I hope my answer helped you, but I'm pretty sure you can find a ER professional healthcare staff around here which will provide way better answe than this.
Yes, it's very realistic.
The boys were apparently clinically dead when found. Clinical death means there is no pulse or respirations. Clinical death is not necessarily permanent. CPR, defibrillators, and drugs can sometimes reverse the situation.
Clinical death is different from legal death, which is what happens when a doctor declares someone dead.
The most likely scenario is pulses were never restored, but they were young and previously healthy so a lot of time and effort was expended trying to resuscitate them. It was quite possibly a few hours.
This is a very common scenario. When you read that someone was taken to the hospital in cardiac arrest and died hours (not days) later, what that usually means is the hospital spent hours trying to save them but failed. They most likely never regained pulses. The time of death is reported when the doctor in charge gave up and declared them dead, not when their hearts stopped.
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