Machine brings a mother back from the dead after 42 minutes
SHE was clinically dead for 42 minutes but yesterday Vanessa Tanasio was smiling and chatting to her children.
The 41-year-old was saved by a hi-tech machine which kept her heart beating as doctors operated on a lethal blockage in an artery after she suffered a heart attack.
It kept blood and oxygen flowing to her brain as they battled to bring her back to life – and succeeded against the odds.
‘I feel excellent,’ she said with her children Ella, 11, and Max, nine, at her side in hospital. ‘For someone who has been dead for nearly an hour, I am feeling tremendously well.’
Her survival was described as ‘astonishing’ by doctors.
Mrs Tanasio, a saleswoman, had been taken by ambulance to hospital in Melbourne, Australia, after shocks with a defibrillator to kickstart her heart.
When she arrived, she was conscious but soon went into full cardiac arrest and was declared clinically dead.
Doctors fitted the machine – the Lucas 2 External Compression Device – round her chest to pump her heart and prevent brain damage from a lack of oxygen. While it performed CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation), they inserted a narrow tube called a stent into the coronary artery to unblock it and restore the blood supply.
Medics at the Monash Medical Centre said the machine, nick- named the thumper, gives much more efficient and accurate chest compressions without risking tiredness and injury to staff.
Mrs Tanasio said she had not suffered heart illness before although she is a smoker with a family history of cardiac problems.
‘This has taken me completely by surprise,’ she said. ‘I’m relieved to be
‘I feel excellent, tremendously well’
still here for my children. The doctors and nurses have been awesome – the machine is awesome.’
Cardiologist Wally Ahmar worked to unblock the artery before other doctors moved in to shock the heart back to its normal rhythm.
‘She’s in good spirits,’ said the clinic spokesman after the drama last Mon- day. ‘This is exceedingly good news.’ The Swedish-made Lucas 2 is also used in NHS emergency units. They are used widely in ambulances in Australia but there was only one in the hospital, and that only after a fundraising drive by police and a heart charity.
Sergeant Mark Robertson from the force was at the hospital yesterday to share the family’s joy.
Another patient in Melbourne was also brought back to life earlier this year using the machine.
Colin Fiedler, 39, suffered a major heart attack and was declared dead for more than half-an-hour.
Footballer Fabrice Muamba was kept alive for 90 minutes after suffering a cardiac arrest while playing for Bolton in London last year.
A New York cardiologist told in a recent interview of a Japanese girl ‘dead’ for three hours who was revived and able to live a normal life.