Michael Knapiski, hiker, miraculasouly came back to life after losing his heartbeat for forty-five minutes. Shocking, isn’t it?
A hiker, who had got lost in the Mount Rainier National Park in freezing conditions, was rescued and brought to hospital, but then his heart stopped beating. However, because of the medical team’s efforts, the man’s life was saved.
The hiker, aged 45, was snow hiking with one of his friends at the US national park on November 7. According to the Seattle Times, Knapinski separated from his friend in the middle of the hike, and decided to meet him at a designated point. However, soon the weather turned into whiteout conditions and Knapinski couldn’t see anything.
When he didn’t make it back to the meeting point that evening, his friend reported him missing. After several efforts by rescue teams and helicopter searchers, finally Knapinski was found and airlifted to a hospital in Seattle. Reportedly, he had a pulse when he arrived at the hospital but then his heart stopped.
Dr Jenelle Badulak told The Seattle Times, “He died while he was in the ER.” So, in an attempt to save Knapinski, the medical team performed CPR and hooked him up to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine. This pumped blood from his body into a heart-lung machine that removed carbon dioxide, and then back inside him.
After about 45 minutes of working on him, his heart finally started again.
Knapinski woke up two days later. “He was crying and they were crying, and I’m fairly sure I cried a little bit. It was just really special to see someone that we had worked so hard on from start to finish to then wake up that dramatically and that impressively,” a nurse said.
Knapinski is still recovering and told CBS that he started hiking to change his lifestyle as he used to be very unhealthy.