they look back and think, "wow. i never thought i could do this." but we've actually done it. [ male announcer ] visit ameriprise.com and put a confident retirement more within reach. welcome to a very special edition of sgmd. i'm dr. sanjay gupta. if you want to save a life, you

need to learn cpr. there are brand-new guidelines. the old way, check for a pulse. give mouth to mouth. forget it. now, if you see someone on the ground, not responsive, start pressing on their chest right away. itis not fancy, but it works. it's part of something else, a big revolution in emergency care having successful results. you are about to see it here on cheating death. >> 911, what's the emergency. >> middletown, township. >> what's the problem. >> caller: my son is not responding. he's breathing, eyes open. i don't know what's going on. >> is he awake and talking to you or not? >>. >> caller: no, he's not. >> i'm going to give you instructions. stay on the line.

>> christopher was chris brooks. months from college graduation. he was working construction part-time and living at home with his family. when the 911 call came in, he was dead. clinically dead for 15 minutes. he heart stopped at 3:00 in the morning. here is the thing. it wasn't the end. in his case and several others you are about to see, death was reversible. the night chris brooks died he was at this bowling alley. a night out with a girl and his best friend. was he acting differently at all? >> no. he was acting himself. the life of the party. >> he's 22. came home from college to work for the weekend. it woke me up.

he said it's just me plugging my phone in. >> moments later, a noise from the couch. it sounded like snoring, but his mother knew something wasn't right. >> i went to smack his face and i'm like christopher. i said i can't wake him up. >> is he breathing? >> i don't know. >> is he breathing? >> i don't know. we can't tell, all right. we can't tell. >> tell everybody to stop screaming and listen to me to give you some help. >> did you know what to do? >> no. i watch tv. i started giving him mouth to mouth. it's all i know. the 911 operator told me to stop mouth to mouth and straddle his chest and give him 60 compressions in a minute and keep doing it. keep doing it. they are on their way. >> bare his chest and put both heels between his nipples. >> i'm screaming, where are

they? where are they. >> for every minute our brains go without oxygen, our chances decrease 10%. he had no heart beat for ten minutes had almost a zero chance of survival. his father was buying him precious time. it was a new kind of cpr. it was pioneered right here in arizona. it's a better way to save people whose hearts have stopped. >> what's the address. >> my husband is not responding. >> okay. what is your address? >> this is a call to 911 in scotts dale, arizona. a 53-year-old man is in cardiac arrest. that's his wife on the phone. >> listen to me. someone needs to start cpr. do you have anyone that tl that can do cpr? >> listen to the dispatcher.

>> put the heel of your hand on his breastbone. >> notice what you don't hear. there was nothing in there about breaths. there was nothing about giving breaths. >> press straight down into his chest. go quick. start counting for me. >> it's all about compressing the chest. until recently, that would have been unthinkable. but, it does work. here is why. for the first several minutes after your heart stops, your blood has plenty of oxygen. as expert beth holders know, it's a trick your body plays on the mind. synchronized swimmers know this. you can go longer without breathing than you think. with practice, almost anyone can hold their breathe for two or three minutes. experts go seven minutes.

seven minutes without a breath. think about that. only if the oxygen gets to the brain. either pumped by the heart or chest compressions. in most cases, a cardiac arrest is not enough time. what if you could buy just a bit more? what if you could slow the clock? coming up, what you need to know to save a life.

chris brooks is clinging to life. his desperate father trying to buy more time using a new kind of cpr. it's based on a new understanding between the space of life and death. before we pick up the story, there's someone else you should immediate. where are we now? >> the center for recessation in pennsylvania. >> this is dr. lance becker. >> when i trained it's like you are alive, you are dead.

it's a sharp line. now we know it's nothing like that. it's a gradual process. that process means there's an opportunity. we can do something. >> someone said don't bother with the mouth to mouth. you have oxygen in the bloodstream. >> get as many compressions in as you can. if you can get a little extra oxygen in, that's fabulous. the priority is the chest compressions. >> you are saying go up there and do it as fast and hard as you can. are we talking 100 time as minute? >> 100 times a minute with enough force if you do it right, there's sweat dripping off your nose. >> straight over. >> straight over, push, push, push. >> what you are describing could save lives. >> it has saved lives. >> dr. ben oversees merges for

health. when he took over in 2004, the odds of surviving cardiac arrests in arizona were just as grim as anywhere else. >> we said it's hard to do worse than 97% of the people dying. >> one of the first things he did was change the guidelines. >> it's 200 chest compressions in two minutes. that's before the artificial breast. >> for lay people in training courses like this one and from 911 dispatchers, the advice is simpler than that. don't bother giving breaths at all. >> i want you to do compression only cpr. >> within a year of the changes, there was dramatic success. >> statewide survival rate more than tripled. >> think about that. it's more than tripled. in some parts of the states,

it's better than that. using several new procedures including better cpr, paramedics in flagstaff now save more than a third of the cardiac arrest victims they see. back in pennsylvania, time was running out for chris brooks. next, another novel treatment to try to keep him alive. arthritis? they're discovering simponi®, the first self-injectable r.a. medicine you take just once a month. taken with methotrexate, simponi® helps relieve the pain, stiffness and swelling of r.a. with one dose once a month. visit 4simponi.com to see if you qualify for a full year of cost support. simponi® can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious and sometimes fatal events can occur, such as infections, cancer in children and adults, heart failure, nervous system disorders, liver or blood problems, and allergic reactions. before starting simponi®, your doctor should test you for t.b.

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>> come on chris. come on chris. >> how old is he? >> 22. >> mrs. brooks. her son is dying in front of her. her husband is doing cpr. >> they say does he have a heart beat or breath. no. it was taking 8.5 minutes. it's a lifetime. i don't know if you can imagine, a second is an hour, if you know what i mean. >> they are here now. >> have the people come in.

>> oh my god. come on chris. come on chris. >> it had been more than 15 minutes since his heart stopped beating. >> when the medics got here, i was pacing. i didn't watch them do their work. >> we're going to start with the cpr. adam, my partner that evening shocked him. >> they hit him with the padd s paddles, he jumps. nothing is nothing. i don't know how to explain what nothing is. but it's not -- you know, then they did it, again. it was nothing. >> joan lost three family members in less than a year. she was frantic. >> you took my mother, my dad and you are not taking my son. i said don't let this happen. >> adam had to shock him, again. he flat lined. >> this is important. the paramedics didn't quit here.

they gave chris another shot of epinephrine and another drug to try to jump start his heart. >> adam shocked him. his rhythm converted into a normal rhythm. they give him a needle in the heart and they got a heart beat. out the door they went. >> they rushed chris to the local hospital minutes away. he's not out of the woods, not yet. even after getting back a heart beat, most people who suffer a cardiac heart arrest, they don't make it. a dong rouse chain reaction is set into motion. it's triggers by a lack of oxygen, a chemical cascade resulting in an explosion of free radicals and other dangerous elements. once it starts going, it's hard to stop. >> it will occur for 12 to 24 hours afterward. it's why we endeuce the hypothermia. the doctors ice him down.

lower the body temperature. here is the idea. by cooling chris, they put the process of death into slow motion. they wrap him in a cooling blanket. they realize he needed to be colder and they needed a more experienced team to do that. >> the best place for him and the best place for full recovery was at the university of pennsylvania. >> we accepted the transfer. we got him here by helicopter as quickly as we could. he was down. they often have crippling brain injury. >> i would have thought he would have a brain injury as well. a team was fighting back. how? by cooling his body temperature below 90 degrees. on top of the extra minutes that chris got from the cpr, it was the cold that might buy a few hours. would it be enough?

you are looking at the lifeline chopper with chris inside. this photo was taken by his father. i took my camera out and took a picture of him as they were leaving because i couldn't go with them to the hospital. >> next, a crucial test. >> we won't know until he wakes up. it depends how good you kept oxygen to the brain. ocid most calcium supplemts... t adththod it's dif - alcium crhea

chris brooks -- 22 years old, in critical care at the hospital of the university of pennsylvania.

he'd survived more than 15 minutes without a heartbeat. now under heavy sedation, he's being cooled to try and ward off brain damage. doctors kept him cool for 24 hours and then slowly, slowly started to rewarm him. >> and he's fine except for his brain we have no tests that can tell his brain. we won't know until he wakes up. and it depends how good you kept oxygen to the brain. depending on will he have any brain damage. and i'm not trained in cpr or anything, so this could be -- >> did i do good enough job? >> oh, yeah. that's how they put it. >> when they started reheating his body and said, you know, he might start to come out of it, don't be scared if he doesn't know who you are. don't be scared. obviously he's been through a

lot. we can't check his brain waves until he's conscious. he started coming out of it, couldn't talk or anything like that, tube was still in his throat. everyone's always holding his hands and stuff and in his ear. if you can hear me, squeeze my hand. >> if they can give you the two thumbs up sign, they're okay. because it's pretty high level. and he had one hand under the sheet and he gave her two thumbs up and i said that's like my son, not to listen to what he's told. >> you're walking. >> reporter: six months after his heart stopped, chris graduated from college. yes, he still goes bowling with his best friend, and he's got a job in philadelphia. he's trying to save money to buy a house. >> i do plumbing and hvac, i don't let this hold me back. >> reporter: he has a defib later implanted under his skin. it's gone off twice, one time during a pick-up football game.

>> boom, it hits me. my arms like this, took me right off the ground. flat faced on the grass and out probably for ten seconds. >> you got shocked? >> yeah, and it kicked me. >> wow. that's amazing. >> yes. >> and if you hadn't had that. >> i would have went into cardiac arrest again. >> they say cooling is a lifesaver. >> i don't want to overstate this, but this literally makes a huge difference in terms of survival? >> it can durable the chance of brain survive. >> this could? >> yes. >> it's amazing. you think about multibillion dollar drugs and that's what gets all the attention. this piece of plastic and this machine could double survival and no one talks about it. >> that's right. >> a lot of circumstances you may have been declared dead. >> yeah. >> what is the message, do you think for doctors, for everybody? >> don't give up. i guess. don't give up. >> next, an incredible story about a woman who redefined the limits of survival. she calls it the world record that no one wants to beat.

we'll be right back. interesting grooming. thanks. i got the idea from general mills big g cereals. they put a white check on the top of every box to let people know that their cereals have healthy whole grain, and they're the right choice... (announcer) general mills makes getting whole grain an easy choice. just look for the white check.

we are north of the arctic circle. and this is the air ambulance team at the university of hospital of north norway. doctors here at norway make runs like this every single day. taking care of a fisherman who has fallen into these frigid waters. they may be among the most experienced doctors in the world at treating accidental hypothermia. in may of 1999, she was going

down the steep gully with two friends and fellow doctors in training. >> when it comes down to this frozen gully, it's a bit steep. so i hit some steps, and then i turned on my back and started to slide down the ice on my back. >> what happened was she landed upside down with her head stuck under water between a rock and a thick shelf of ice. in fact, this is the exact spot where this all happened. two of the men involved in ana's rescue showed us. >> she was where the water is most eager over the cliff here. >> you can only imagine the desperation her friends must have felt as the moments started to tick by. she struggled for a while and then she stopped. it took more than an hour and a shovel to free anna from the ice.

they immediately started cpr. as the clock was ticking, a helicopter flew anna to the university hospital of north norway. an hour away, she was taken straight to the operating room. >> she has completely dialated pupils, she's wet, ice cold when i touch her skin and she looks absolutely dead. this is the double-edge sword. the cold was protecting her brain, it was stopping her heart, but it was protecting her brain. the brain was so cold, it did not need any oxygen. >> and the doctors began to slowly rewarm anna's blood. now, take a look at this. it's anna's heart. >> we just saw some little shivering and suddenly, suddenly -- it contracted. and there was a pulse and a second contraction.

everybody goes like that and we had really tearful eyes, all of us, because it was a moment of victory. >> she had no heartbeat for more than three hours. her body temperature, 56 degrees fahrenheit. no one has ever been that cold and then survived. >> is it something that you take pride in? the fact that you've -- >> no, no, no -- >> you had this -- >> well, it's nice to have a world record, it's nice to have a world record, that you know nobody wants to beat. >> that's a good way to put it. >> anna was paralyzed for months after the accident. turns out cold is devastating to your nerves, but she made a full recovery. and now she's a radiologist at the very same hospital where doctors refused to accept that she was dead. and in case you're curious -- i was, anna still skis those mountains where she once cheated death. and there's something else to the story, as well.