The Daily Populous Thursday January 2nd, 2025 evening edition
Authored by indiatoday.in and submitted by pntba

A 65-year-old man in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur seemingly "came back to life" after an ambulance carrying his presumed lifeless body hit a speed breaker. The incident unfolded on December 16.

Pandurang Ulpe, a resident of Kasaba-Bawada, had suffered a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital, where he was declared dead by doctors. His family arranged to transport his body home for the last rites.

As the ambulance carrying Ulpe's body drove over a speed breaker, his family noticed something extraordinary—his fingers moved. They immediately diverted the ambulance to another hospital.

At the second hospital, Ulpe was admitted for intensive care and underwent angioplasty. After a 15-day stay, he was discharged.

“I had come home from a walk and was sitting after sipping tea. I felt dizzy and breathless. I went to the bathroom and vomited. I don’t remember what happened afterwards, including who took me to the hospital," Pandurang Ulpe was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

The hospital that initially declared Ulpe dead has yet to issue a statement regarding the incident.

Published By: Ashutosh Acharya Published On: Jan 2, 2025

phoenix25 on January 2nd, 2025 at 14:50 UTC »

The reason behind how (theoretically) this could happen is fascinating.

We defibrillate hearts with electricity, measured in joules. Depending on the type of machine and local protocol, you defibrillate at around 200j.

Movement and impact can produce energy as well, if you hit someone in the chest as hand as you can you can produce about 5j. This is why you see doctors on cheesy medical shows like Grey’s Anatomy hit the patient when they first go into cardiac arrest before starting CPR. It’s also how that football player dropped on the field in cardiac arrest following an impact recently (although that specific phenomenon gets a little more complicated to explain, it’s called Commotio Cordis)

So the implication of this story is that the patient had been declared dead, despite actually existing in a lethal dysthymia like V-Tach (because we do not shock asystole/flat line, we only defibrillate to reset the electrical system of the hard if it is going haywire). So somehow this patient managed to live, pulseless, without CPR to circulate enough oxygen to his brain and kidneys so they don’t die. This is impossible.

What’s more likely is this patient was in an arrhythmia like SVT, where his heart rate was so high that his pulse was not easily found but his blood pressure was just high enough to keep a bit of circulation going. You feel a pulse at 60 systolic (the top number of a blood pressure, average is 120), so his would be under that. There’s a joke in EMS that if you are not certified to perform a cardioversion to fix this issue, just make sure to hit the potholes as hard as you can en route to the hospital.

At any rate if this story is true, it’s not a miracle. It’s a screw up of extraordinary measures because even if it occurred in a village that could not afford a cardiac monitor there would still be plenty of signs that this guy was not actually dead. If that area did have a medical professional trained for ECG interpretation and the equipment to do so… well hopefully he gets fired before he tries to kill someone else.

alwaysfatigued8787 on January 2nd, 2025 at 14:28 UTC »

I'm picturing him popping up like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction after hitting the speed breaker.

Aleyla on January 2nd, 2025 at 14:26 UTC »

Moral of the story: if you need a dr’s services in India always get a second opinion no matter what the diagnosis.