Medicine: Record Freeze

Police examined the two figures sprawled on the floor of the little frame house in Marshalltown. Iowa, and called the undertaker. Despite a low-burning oil heater, the 24-below-zero cold had crept into the house. Mrs. Fred Davis, 50, and her two-year-old granddaughter Vickie had apparently been lying there all night (victims of assault or accident, no one is yet sure which), and their bodies were frozen rigid. But the woman suddenly moaned softly, and police rushed her and the child to the hospital.

A body temperature below 70° is believed to be fatal. Protected by layers of fat and some drinks of whisky, Mrs. Davis had a temperature of just 70°. But Vickie’s temperature was 60.8°. No one in medical history had ever survived a temperature as low as that (a Chicago woman lived after a 64.4° temperature in 1951). Doctors had little hope of saving the child, but they decided to try. She was placed in a warm-water bath and given regular cortisone injections. As the water’s temperature was increased Vickie’s body began to thaw. She moved slightly; then she cried. Three and a half hours after she was put in the water, Vickie was back in bed and able to swallow liquids. Mrs. Davis, with similar treatment, took five hours to thaw out.