So I’ve been doing a little bit of reading into the idea of this so-called “hypothermic compound” with which Emerson injected Tony to resuscitate him after he was clinically dead. In the Newsweek article Back To Life: The Science of Raising the Dead, Dr. Lance Becker explains the potential link between mitochondria, hypothermia and the period of survival potential without a heartbeat:
Becker is interested in mitochondria for another reason: he believes they are the key to his audacious goal of tripling the time during which a human being can go without a heartbeat and still be revived. That the five-minute rule is not absolute has been known for a long time, and the exceptions seem to involve low temperatures. Children who fall through ice may survive unexpectedly long immersions in cold water. On Napoleon’s Russian campaign, his surgeon general noticed that wounded infantrymen, left on the snowy ground to recover, had better survival rates than officers who stayed warm near the campfire. Becker is hoping to harness this effect to save lives today.
