Near Narvik, Norway May 20th, 1999
One moment Anna was laughing, the wind whipping through her hair, her skis expertly gliding
over the ice.
The next moment she was slipping and as she tried to correct, one of her skis hit a big
rock.
She spun around, fell onto her back and went careening down the steep mountain slope headfirst.
She crashed into a frozen stream, shattering through 8 inches (29 cm) of surface ice.
She ended upside down, her head and torso submerged in the frigid water, her legs still
attached to skis sticking out of the river.
After work, 29 year old radiologist Anna Bågenholma and two doctor friends Torvind Næsheim and
Marie Falkenberg went skiing off-piste in the Kjolen Mountains.
Though the spring melt had begun---there was still plenty of skiing down icy slopes for
the expert, avid skiers.
The three were having a great time until Anna suddenly slipped and quickly slid down the
mountain, crashing inverted into a frozen stream in a freak accident.
Marie and Torvind quickly skied down to Anna and grabbed ahold of her le gs.
They heaved and strained trying to drag her back to safety.
But their efforts were in vain.
Anna was jammed between some rocks and it was awkward to maneuver her legs.
Worse yet, frigid spring runoff was pouring down in the area, splashing Marie and Torvind,
as well as refreezing the hole Anna was stuck in.
They eventually had to give up as Anna’s heavy ski gear grew sodden and the stream
dragged her down.
Soon only her feet, still attached to her skis, were sticking out.
Fortunately, when Anna crashed through the ice, an air pocket formed so she was able
to breathe.
About 7 minutes after Anna fell into the frigid water, her friends called for help on a mobile
phone.
After that Anna’s friends continued to hold on to her feet until help arrived.
A Narvik police lieutenant immediately sent out two rescue teams, one from the top of
the mountain, the other from the bottom.
He also contacted the nearest rescue helicopter team in Bodø, over an hour’s flight away,
and arranged for transport.
After 40 minutes Anna had used up the air pocket, she went into circulatory arrest and
blacked out.
Her body temperature dropped even further and her vital organs shut down.
The rescue party from the top of the mountain, skied as fast as they could to reach the spot
where Anna was trapped under the ice.
Upon arrival, they tried to free her by tying a rope to her feet and pulling.
That didn’t work.
Then they tried to dig her out, but they were unsuccessful.
The snow shovels and small saw they had brought were no match for the thick ice.
Meanwhile, the rescuers climbing up the mountain arrived.
Thankfully, they had a pointed gardening shovel.
They cut a hole into the ice slightly downhill from Anna and were able to pull her through
the opening.
She had been under the ice for about 80 minutes.
When they pulled Anna out of the water, she was eerily pale in appearance, wasn’t breathing
and had no heartbeat.
In fact, she was clinically dead.
Chances of survival were slim at best but her friends didn’t give up hope.
They immediately started CPR and continued until the rescue helicopter arrived, which
was thankfully only minutes after Anna had been freed from her icy prison.
[ANIMATOR: Halfway down the page is a helicopter similar to what they rescued Anna with.
https://bushcraftbuddy.com/anna-bagenholm-80-minutes-in-a-frozen-stream/ ]
During the hour-long flight to the University Hospital of North Norway in Tromsø, the emergency
crew continued to perform CPR on Anna and put her on an oxygen ventilator.
They also tried using a defibrillator to restart her heart, but were unable to revive her.
Her electrocardiogram (ECG) was completely flat.
By the time she reached the hospital, it had been more than 2.5 hours since Anna first
fell in the frozen stream.
Her body temperature was 56.66°F, (13.7 °C) more than 40 degrees lower than the average
normal body temperature of 98.6°F, (37 °C).
The situation looked bleak.
No one was known to have lived after becoming so cold before.
However, the head of the emergency medical department, Dr. Mads Gilbert wasn’t ready
to give up.
He had plenty of experience in treating hypothermia, although admittedly he had never treated such
an extreme case.
He hoped that Anna was so cold that her brain would have begun to slow down before she ‘died’,
protecting it from damage.
He also theorized that the continuous CPR she'd received since being pulled out of the
frozen river might have been enough to keep her brain functioning properly.
Dr. Gilbert reminded his team of the mantra ‘a patient’s not dead until they’re
warm and dead’ meaning that a patient who suffers a cardiac arrest secondary to a cold
exposure might actually be alive, but the cold hides that fact.
Dr. Gilbert was standing by as the rescue helicopter carrying Anna touched down on the
hospital’s helipad.
He immediately began CPR and continued as Anna was wheeled through the hospital into
the operating theater.
Over the next 9 hours, Anna was treated by a team of more than 100 doctors and nurses
working in shifts.
The medical team began re-warming Anna’s blood manually outside of her body through
a heart-lung bypass machine.
The newly-warmed blood was then reintroduced to Anna’s circulatory system, which gradually
warmed her as it circulated through her body.
Anna had arrived at the hospital at 9:10 pm, but it wasn’t until nearly 2 hours later,
at 11:15 pm when Anna’s temperature reached 97.5 F (36.4 C) that the medical team recorded
Anna’s first heartbeat.
At first, her heartbeats were sporadic, but gradually her heart settled into a stable
rhythm.
But Anna wasn’t out of the woods yet.
Even though her heart was now beating, her lungs began to deteriorate.
Anna would spend the next 35 days connected to a ventilator.
Also worrying, was the fact that Anna’s peripheral nervous system had been severely
damaged by the extreme cold.
These nerves connect the brain and spinal cord to the human body, basically relaying
messages between the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body.
The peripheral nervous system controls the functions of sensation, movement, and motor
coordination.
Ten days after the accident, Anna woke up paralyzed from the neck down.
The medical staff couldn’t confirm whether she’d ever recover or not.
Initially, Anna was devastated.
She had been a very active person and she couldn't fathom the changes to her life.
She was also angry at her colleagues for saving her.
Anna spent the next 2 months in an intensive care unit as her kidneys and digestive system
weren’t functioning properly.
After spending 28 days in the University Hospital of North Norway intensive care unit, she was
flown to Sweden in an ambulance helicopter for the remainder of her recovery.
Gradually Anna healed.
Her digestive issues eased and her nerves started to recover.
She began to regain control of her limbs.
She apologized to her friends and thanked them for saving her.
After her stay in the hospital and months of grueling rehabilitation Anna made a near-complete
recovery.
Post recuperation, she only has minor struggles with neuropathy and fine movement with her
fingers due to nerve damage.
About 5 months after the accident Anna was able to return to work.
Eventually, she resumed her beloved hobby of skiing.
Dr. Gilbert’s theory was right.
Ironically, the cold that damaged her body also preserved Anna’s brain.
Basically, when she plunged into the icy water, her brain was flash frozen.
As her brain rapidly cooled, it slowed its biological processes, therefore, requiring
less oxygen to survive.
So even as she stopped breathing and her heart stopped pumping, cutting off her body’s
blood supply, her brain was able to continue functioning in a semi-dormant state.
At the human body’s preferred average temperature of 98.6°F, (37 °C), our brains can only
go without oxygen for only 8-10 minutes before permanent damage sets in.
But if a body is cold, the body's metabolism slows down in order to keep us alive, which
means the brain survives with far less oxygen.
According to one medical journal, Anna’s metabolism slowed down to ten percent of its
baseline rate.
Therefore she hardly needed any oxygen at all.
In 2021, Anna still holds the record for the lowest accidental body temperature ever recorded
in an adult that was survived.
In addition to creating a record, Anna’s case changed how extreme cold is treated.
At the University Hospital of North Norway, Anna was the first patient to survive a hypothermia
death.
A 2014 study found that between 1999 and 2013, nine out of 24 patients survived hypothermia
cardiac arrest due to treatment at the hospital.
Anna’s case has even been reported in medical research journals and discussed in medical
textbooks.
The study of extreme hypothermia cases has led to new life-preserving procedures such
as therapeutic hypothermia.
This means intentionally lowering a critical care patient’s body temperature to 90–93
°F (32–34 °C) to slow deterioration following cardiac arrest, severe bleeding, or other
acute trauma.
In 2003 the American Heart Association (AHA) officially endorsed the use of therapeutic
hypothermia following cardiac arrest.
Another procedure being pioneered is ‘suspended animation’ officially called emergency preservation
and resuscitation (EPR).
This procedure is being tested on patients who have had a cardiac arrest after experiencing
acute trauma such as a gunshot or stab wounds.
These patients’ hearts have stopped beating and they will have lost more than half their
blood.
There are only minutes to operate, with a less than 5% chance that they would normally
survive.
During EPR a patient is rapidly cooled to around 59 -50°F (10-15°C) by replacing all
of their blood with ice-cold saline.
This stops nearly all of the patient’s brain activity.
Technically the patient is dead.
This gives a medical team a small window of time, 2 hours or less to repair the patient’s
injuries before they are warmed up and their heart restarted.
It’s fascinating how a deadly condition such as hypothermia can also preserve life.
What happens when a doctor removes the wrong body part?
Find out here: How to survive being shot: