Some Obscurish facts
#31
1951 Chicago temperatures fell to 11 below on the night of Feb. 1, 1951, and by the time the police discovered Dorothy Mae Stevens Anderson--who had passed out from drinking and had slept all night unprotected in an alley--the woman's body temperature had plunged to 64.4 deg., her blood and legs had long since frozen solid, and her eyeballs had all but turned to ice. Her pulse rate was barely 12 beats a minute, breaths came three to the minute, and there was no measurable blood pressure. Doctors at Michael Reese Hospital saw little chance that she would survive; still they did what they could. They administered cortisone and swaddled her arms and legs in gauze to keep the flesh from chipping off. Within 24 hours, Mrs. Anderson was conscious and taking liquid nourishment; a week later she was eating solid food, her body temperature at 100.2 deg. No one had ever before been recorded to have survived such a catastrophic loss of body heat. Ultimately both of Mrs. Anderson's legs and all but one finger had to be amputated. But she was able to leave the hospital after six months and lived till 1974.
1951 Chicago temperatures fell to 11 below on the night of Feb. 1, 1951, and by the time the police discovered Dorothy Mae Stevens Anderson--who had passed out from drinking and had slept all night unprotected in an alley--the woman's body temperature had plunged to 64.4 deg., her blood and legs had long since frozen solid, and her eyeballs had all but turned to ice. Her pulse rate was barely 12 beats a minute, breaths came three to the minute, and there was no measurable blood pressure. Doctors at Michael Reese Hospital saw little chance that she would survive; still they did what they could. They administered cortisone and swaddled her arms and legs in gauze to keep the flesh from chipping off. Within 24 hours, Mrs. Anderson was conscious and taking liquid nourishment; a week later she was eating solid food, her body temperature at 100.2 deg. No one had ever before been recorded to have survived such a catastrophic loss of body heat. Ultimately both of Mrs. Anderson's legs and all but one finger had to be amputated. But she was able to leave the hospital after six months and lived till 1974.