BACK FROM DEAD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1938, Page 7

BACK FROM DEAD

HEART ACTION REVIVED. AFTER HALF-HOUR’S STOPPAGE. By saving the life of a baby which had been “dead” for more than halt an hour a United States small-town doctor, Edward Larson, accomplished a medical feat the odds against which are computed at 1000-1. Robert Didier, three-month-old son of Mr and Mrs Charlie Didier, of Chicago, fell off the back seat of its parents’ car while being motored home from a summer resort. For several minutes the child lay on the floor unnoticed, its cries being smothered by a thick covering of blankets. When its mother picked it up it was apparently dead. Its heart-beats had stopped. In a 90 m.p.h car dash Mr and Mrs Didier rushed it to nearest town, carried it into the drug-store, where artificial respiration was tried without success. The lifeless body was rushed to. the surgery of Dr Edward Larson. When the baby was first put into his hands it had been dead for more than half an hour. Reports Dr Larsen: “There was no sign of life. The body was cold, the heart had stopped beating. “I administered adrenalin, then worked frantically at all the methods I knew to retain life. The baby was placed in a tub of water as hot as it could bear. Then I tried artificial respiration and massaged the heart muscles with my hands. “Finally, to my great surprise, I heard an occasional heart-beat. I kept on working, the beat came more steadily; after two hours’ work the heart action was strong enough to operate by itself.” Today, a fortnight after his “death and rebirth, baby Robert Didier is alive and well.