Jim Arrowsmith , cold injection patient: "I've got amnesia for the actual day of the event."

November 22, 2004: Jim Arrowsmith doesn't remember a thing, but he's told he left work early that day.

Jim Arrowsmith , cold injection patient: "Either at the beginning of my jog or at the end of my jog when I was doing stretches, I collapsed."
 
Jim went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing. When paramedics arrived, they injected him with a quart and a half of cold saline to drop his body temperature. It's the first study in the country to do this before cardiac arrest patients get to a hospital.

So far, the results look encouraging.

Francis Kim, M.D., cardiologist: "Mild hypothermia may be the first therapy in a long time that may actually improve survival in a lot of these cardiac arrest patients."

When the heart stops beating, blood and oxygen stop flowing to the brain, and brain cells die. Cold saline drops the body's temperature to about 90 degrees -- which doesn't sound all that low. But this temperature stops inflammation in the brain and it keeps the cells alive.

David Coatsworth, paramedic: "Our success in resuscitating these people will be the patient's ultimate success, because they'll be able to leave the hospital without being neurologically impaired."

Researchers know that cooling the body after patients get to the hospital improves survival rates by more than 10 percent. They want to see if cooling within minutes can help even more.

Jim thinks it can.

Jim Arrowsmith , cold injection patient: "I have complete recovery. I didn't lose any bodily functions or brain functions."

Ninety-percent of cardiac arrest patients die, but Jim is one of the lucky ones.

In addition to improving survival, researchers hope the saline solution will help prevent brain damage. The solution is given in addition to standard C.P.R. and a defibrillator.