Anna Bagenholm
Anna Bagenholm was born in 1970. She was studying to become an orthopedic surgeon so she traveled to Norway to do her residency. As we all know, Norway is famous for its amazing and breathtaking sceneries and its rich natural heritage. Due to its weather, this is also the perfect place for practicing skiing. Can you imagine feeling the wind against your face while going down a mountain as you enjoy the amazing landscape?
In 1999, Anne became a surgical assistant, so she decided to celebrate her achievement by planning a skiing day trip with two of her colleagues. She thought this was a perfect plan since she had not skied for almost a year, and she missed the old days when she ween skiing every day after work. She and her friends decided to go to a mountain they were all familiar with so that Anna would feel at home. But suddenly, all that peace was interrupted.
The Accident
While she was heading down a mountainside, she lost control of her skis and in a second she found herself on a frozen stream lying on her back. Unfortunately, due to the fall, the ice broke and she ended up trapped under the frozen water. She was trapped under the ice, which was 20 cm (7.9 in) thick. When her colleagues reached her, they found only her feet and skis above the ice. This means that all of her body was beneath the water, making it impossible for her to breathe.
Quickly, her colleagues grabbed her skis and, with a big effort, they tried to pull her out. But it was impossible as the ice was too thick, so they called for help. She was stuck there for 7 minutes, and at that point, Anna’s friends had really begun to panic. The police sent two rescue teams as soon as they received the call, and in the meantime, Anna’s friends held her skis while they waited impatiently. Luckily, she found an air pocket which allowed her to breathe, so she remained conscious for some time.
Did The Rescue Team Succeed?
After struggling for forty minutes, Ana began suffering from circulatory arrest, which is a sudden loss of blood flow as a consequence of heart failure. When the rescue team arrived, she was already unconscious. They tried to pull her out using a rope but they did not succeed. In another attempt to rescue her, they tried to pull her out of the ice with a shovel, but it proved to be useless as the layer of ice was way too thick. Then, the second rescue team arrived with a pointed shovel and this time they were able to break the ice and pull Anna out of the water.
Anna had been submerged in frozen water for 80 minutes by the time she was finally rescued. Her pupils were dilated, she was not breathing, and her blood was not circulating. Her colleagues, who were doctors, gave her cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Soon, the rescue helicopter arrived, and on their way to the hospital, she was given CPR and oxygen. It was almost an hour until they finally arrived at the medical center.
The Lowest Temperature
By the time they arrived at the hospital, her body temperature was 13.7 °C (56.7 °F). This was the lowest body temperature ever recorded on a surviving person after suffering from hypothermia. The doctors continued trying to resuscitate her but nothing seemed to work. Dr. Mads Gilbert, the chief of the hospital emergency room, stated that her pupils were dilated and that she was extremely white and cold, so much so that she looked as if she were dead. Fortunately, he had experience dealing with cases of hypothermia, so he knew exactly how to treat Anna.
She was connected to an electrocardiogram which showed no signs of life, but Dr. Mads Gilbert said that her body had to be warmed up before declaring her death. She was connected to a cardiopulmonary bypass machine, which warmed up her blood and then reinserted the warm blood back into her body. After a lot of effort had been made, one first heartbeat was recorded and her body temperature began to rise steadily. However, her lungs became weaker and she had to be connected to a ventilator for 35 days.
No Hope
When she finally woke up, she was paralyzed from the neck down. Everybody knew the recovery was not going to be easy and she even felt kind of angry with her friends for rescuing her. She was incapable of moving her body and she thought her life would be meaningless if she never recovered from her paralysis.
On top of that, her kidneys and digestive system were not working properly either, so she had to stay in the intensive care unit for two months. She was then taken to Sweden in a helicopter ambulance for the last part of her recovery. But how did all turn out? Did she manage to recover without any sequelae? Slide next and find out!
Gradual Recovery
Luckily, after some time, she recovered from her paralysis but she still had problems in her kidneys, so she had to stay a few extra weeks in the intensive care unit. Dr. Petter Andreas Steen said that saving Anna had been an extraordinary medical achievement.
Steen believed that the reason she survived was that her metabolism had slowed down because of the low temperature, meaning that her body didn’t require as much oxygen as usual. In fact, research showed that her metabolism had slowed down so much, that she had barely needed oxygen during those 80 minutes she was trapped beneath the ice.
A True Miracle
Despite the enormous damage that her body had suffered due to the accident and the number of hours she had been frozen, Anna wasn’t left with permanent brain damage. So in spite of the fateful tragedy, we can say she’s a lucky woman! According to Dr. Gilbert, her brain was so cold when her heart stopped beating that her brain cells needed very little oxygen, and that’s the reason why she was able to survive without brain damage. Once in the hospital, she was saved by a method known as therapeutic hypothermia.
Therapeutic hypothermia is a method used to help patients who’ve suffered circulatory arrest and it consists of reducing body temperature to prevent brain damage. This method has become increasingly popular in Norwegian hospitals after Anna Bagenholm’s case. Even though what she went through was horrible, her case helped doctors to be prepared for future cases of hypothermia and be able to save their future patients.
Back To Life
By October 1999, Anna had already returned to work, though she had yet to complete her recovery. At that moment, she was ready to meet all the doctors and nurses who had saved her. That month, 140 days after the accident, she visited the hospital in Tromso where she had been saved and finally met her rescuers. How would you feel if you were to meet the people who saved you?
As Anna Bagenholm said:
“When you are a patient you do not think that you are going to die. You think, you have to make it. But as a medical person, I think it is incredible that I am alive.”
By the time she met with her saviors, she had almost fully recovered. She only had minor symptoms of neural damage in her hands and feet, but it was nothing compared to the near-death experience she had lived. She could have had severe damage after the accident but was lucky to be alive.
A Special Case
A few months after her recovery, she started working as a radiologist in the hospital where her life was saved. It is known that most of the patients who suffer extreme hypothermia die, even if doctors make their hearts beat again. The surviving rate of adults whose bodies reach extremely low levels (below 28°C – 82°F) is 10% – 33%.
Before Anna’s accident, the lowest body temperature at which a person had survived was 14.4°C (57.9°F). Dr. Gilbert, however, always affirms that victims of circulatory arrest should be considered as potentially resuscitable, and that’s why he believed that Anna had chances of making it alive from the very start.
Raising Awareness
Of course, Anna’s case has become very popular. Her story is worth to be told and heard of, but what’s most important is that her medical case has raised awareness on the chances of survival from hypothermia, especially among doctors.
Frequently, victims of extreme hypothermia are wrongly considered dead as it is extremely difficult to feel their pulse. Now, doctors have acknowledged the fact that if someone is exposed to low temperatures, they must be really careful before declaring them dead.
Carpe Diem
Apart from being an amazing case of study, Anna was able to continue working as a surgeon, and surprisingly, she went back to skiing. The fact that she is alive and that she decided to go back to skiing shows how brave she is and that the sky is her limit.
Despite her awful experience, she wants to live the way she wants to. If working and skiing are her greatest passions, then why should she stop doing the things she loved the most?
However, Anna’s was not the only time a person magically survived after being trapped under extreme conditions. Let’s take a look at this other woman’s story.
Hitting The Road
Angela Hernandez was born in Oregon and her family lived in southern California. One weekend in July she decided to visit them, but little did she know what awaited her. She was driving by herself along the highway, but she didn’t feel lonely at all, for the amazing views along the road were enough company for her.
She had thousands of miles ahead, but she really didn’t mind the trip. The most incredible part of her journey was Big Sur, which is a scenic highway that surrounds the Pacific Ocean. Big Sur is famous for its sharp, steep, rocky cliffs which are breathtaking, yet also dangerous.
All Alone
She was driving through the popular Big Sur coastline when she suddenly saw an animal crossing the road and swerved in order not to hit it. In a second, she found herself veering off the edge of a cliff. Her car fell from a 250-feet slope and crashed onto the rocks of the coast. The problem was that the place where she landed could not be seen from the road! The accident was so severe that Angela doesn’t remember much of what happened. She does not even remember hitting her head!
Not only did she hit her head, but she also fractured her ribs and collar bone. She does not remember being incapable of breathing either. The only thing she remembers clearly is the small animal crossing the road and turning the steering wheel to dodge it. After her car crashed, she lost consciousness, which was far from good news as her car started to sink into the ocean. The crash per se was terrible, but the car sinking was even worse. How would she ever survive?
The Awakening
When Angela recovered consciousness, she found herself inside her car with salty water up to her knees. The car was already sinking and was increasingly filling up with water. She was just awakening but she had to deal with this despairing situation in a matter of seconds.
“The only thing I really remember after that was waking up. I was still in my car and I could feel water rising over my knees. My head hurt and when I touched it, I found blood on my hands”, she claimed.
As Angela later said, the car’s motor had broken and its windows were closed. She took off her seat belt immediately and grabbed a multi-tool that she had near her front seat. Angela started hitting the window next to her with the tool. Despite all the pain she was suffering, she continued hitting the driver window until it finally shattered into pieces. Once she finally made it, she jumped through the broken window into the sea and swam away, trying to reach the coast.
A Moment Of Desperation
When she finally reached the coast, she fainted. She was seriously injured and she did not have her shoes on. Anyway, she managed to get out of the water. After some time, she recovered consciousness and she realized she was trapped, as there seemed to be no possible way of climbing back to the highway. It was only then that she realized she had been in a terrible accident because her whole body was in pain. She could only see water, rocks, and the roof of her car amid the sea.
The night had not come yet but Angela already knew she was going to live a nightmare, as she found no possible way of asking for help. She tried to see if there was a beach nearby, but it was all rocks and water. To make matters worse, she was sunburnt, hungry, and dehydrated. It was touch and go whether she would survive. She was left with no choice but to come up with some sort of signal, hoping somebody would see them and rescue her, or at least have a rescue team sent.
Survival
She was really thirsty and she knew she wouldn’t survive much longer, so she decided to go back to her sinking car and see if she could find something useful. She later said she wouldn’t have survived if it had not been for what she found.
She used a black hose she found inside her car to collect water falling from the rocks. She also found a rock full of moss on the side of the cliff that accumulated water. Angela connected one tip of the hose to the rock and she was able to drink some water from the other tip.
Help Was On Its Way
Meanwhile, the police were looking for Angela as she was reported to be missing. They knew that she was driving from Oregon to California. The last day Angela had been seen was on July 6, driving her car down the highway around Big Sur. To make things worse, there was fog coming from the coast, making it even more difficult to find her or her car.
Angela was skeptical, so much so that she never would’ve imagined that a rescue team had actually been looking for her the whole time. She was just trying to survive on the bottom of the cliffs as she heard the sound of the cars passing by at a distance.
Hopeless
She couldn’t shout loud enough in order to be heard, and apparently, nobody could see her either. All she needed was for one person to lean out the highway and see the car’s broken glasses scattered across the rocks. She knew that if that happened, she could maybe survive and meet her family again. But what if it didn’t? Sadly, all her attempts of being seen or heard were proving to be in vain.
Before she knew it, the sun had set and her chances of survival were even grimmer. That night, she dreamed that someone came to rescue her, but she woke up the following day realizing she was back to square one. Angela was desperate, but so was her family, as she had never shown up on the arranged date. But even though dozens of policemen were searching for her, the Californian coast is so extremely large that finding her was a nearly impossible task.
Silver Linings
Little did Angela imagine that she would eventually me rescued not by one, but by two saviors. One week after the accident, two hikers named Chad and Chelsea Moore were walking along the coast, when they suddenly saw something strange. They noticed there was a car surrounded by rocks at the base of the cliff. They were surprised to see a wrecked car buried in the sand, so they decided to climb down the rocks to the shore and check out what was going on.
Once they reached the shore, they came across a whole lot of items they did not expect. There were shoes, clothes, a hose, and broken glass scattered across the sand. When they got closer to the car, they realized that a terrible and probably deadly accident had happened. In fact, the vehicle was in such bad shape that they figured nobody could be trapped inside it alive. But for Angela’s relief, they decided to check anyway.
The Rescue
Meanwhile, Angela was lying down behind a bolder when she first spotted the couple, and at first, she thought she was daydreaming again. But when she realized the couple was real, she began shouting with all her might, trying hard to stand up in order to be seen. She had no energy at all, but at the same time, she knew these strangers were her only way out.
So while the tourists were inspecting the wrecked car, they suddenly heard Angel’as desperate screams. They walked a few feet towards the place where the scream came from, only to find Angela lying against a huge boulder. She was in pain and severely dehydrated but, luckily, she was still alive.
The Hardest Part
Angela was in a deplorable state, but at the same time, she managed to make out a smile, as she was relieved that she had finally been discovered. The first thing Chad and Chelsea asked her was if she had been the one who crashed. She answered that the car was indeed hers and that she had fallen down the cliff a couple of days ago.
When they heard her response, they could not believe she was alive. It was unbelievable that she had fallen down such a tremendously steep cliff, and had made it alive without any serious injuries! Can you guess what happened next?
No Telephone Signal
There was barely any telephone signal in Big Sur, so Chelsea ran quickly to find help while her husband, Chad, stayed with Angela and gave her fresh water. But it seemed to be Angela’s lucky day, as Chelsea managed to communicate with the emergency line.
Chad and Chelsea stayed with Angela and did whatever they could to keep her alive until the rescue team finally arrived. The police report later confirmed that Angela Hernandez was found by two people who luckily called the 911 just on time and that her car was partly covered by the sea by the time they arrived.
Recovery
The first rescue team went down to the shore using ropes, they gave her some water and then helped her all the way back to the road. She was immediately taken to a hospital where she was carefully treated. She had bruises and wounds all over her body and had even suffered a hemorrhage in her brain.
Despite all her injuries, she was able to recover properly. She said that she was really happy and thankful that Chad and Chelsea had found her and called for help. Both Angela and the couple felt that they were there for a reason and that they were meant to save her. If it had not been for them, Angela would not be alive today. The couple felt relieved when the doctors told her she was recovering, and they told the media that Angela was the real hero in this story, for having survived such an accident.
A New Life
Now, Angela lives her life differently. She thinks she was given a second chance in life and still can’t believe she managed to recover. In order to remember everything she went through, she kept several of the items that were found inside her car on the day of the rescue. To this day, she treasures those objects as they remind her how lucky she was to have survived not only the crash but also the whole week she spent by herself under such terrible conditions.
The accident was a turning point not only in Angela’s life but also in the lives of her loved ones. From that moment on, she promised to spend all the time she could with the people she cares about and loves, and also to enjoy every single moment in life. She believes every day should be lived as if it were the last one.