Child survives after being dead for 90 minutes

A 13-month-old female toddler who had wandered out through an open kitchen door, was found lying face-down in the snow, in temperatures of about minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20 Celsius) on Saturday. She was wearing only a diaper. Her heart stopped beating for more than 90 minutes, but she suffered no brain damage and is now recovering in the Edmonton hospital where she was treated for extreme hypothermia. Police, who declined to give her name, believe she may have become disoriented after leaving the bed in which she has been asleep with her mother. The 26-year-old mother, who had gone to bed around 10 p.m., awoke about 3 a.m., found the toddler missing, and began a frantic search. Outside, she followed the child's footprints and found her lying frozen in the snow. Paramedics, who arrived after a 911 emergency call, found she had no pulse. At the University of Alberta Hospital, doctors put her in a "bear hug" blanket to circulate warm air around her body and raise her body temperature, but normal medical procedures failed to get her heart beating again. Doctors were about to begin surgery to put her on a heart-lung machine when, just before 5 a.m., they were astonished to find the baby's heart began beating again on its own. There have been four or five other documented cases of very small children surviving after been frozen in sub-zero weather conditions, doctors are quoted by UPI as saying.