The longest time someone has been cardiac arrest and successfully revived and fully recovered is 17 hours. The record is held by Velma Thomas from West Virginia US.
Within hours, blood is pulled downwards, causing splotches on the skin. Because the heart is no longer pumping blood around the body, it starts being pulled down by gravity. As the blood pools, patches appear on the skin within 30 minutes of death.
The longest that the heart stopped before restarting on its own was four minutes and 20 seconds. The longest time that heart activity continued after restarting was 27 minutes, but most restarts lasted just one to two seconds. None of the patients we observed survived or regained consciousness.
Although death has historically been medically defined as the moment when the heart irreversibly stops beating, recent studies have suggested brain activity in many animals and humans can continue for seconds to hours.
For the first few minutes of the postmortem period, brain cells may survive. The heart can keep beating without its blood supply. A healthy liver continues breaking down alcohol. And if a technician strikes your thigh above the kneecap, your leg likely kicks, just as it did at your last reflex test with a physician.
The brain and nerve cells require a constant supply of oxygen and will die within a few minutes, once you stop breathing. The next to go will be the heart, followed by the liver, then the kidneys and pancreas, which can last for about an hour. Skin, tendons, heart valves and corneas will still be alive after a day.
If CPR is initiated within: 0–4 minutes: unlikely to develop brain damage. 4–6 minutes: possibility of brain damage. 6–10 minutes: high probability of brain damage.
The longest time spent in cardiac arrest – with full neurological recovery – is 8 hours 42 minutes in the case of a 31-year-old mountain climber identified only as "Roberto", who required medical assistance during his attempt to climb the face of Marmolada in the Italian Dolomites on 26 August 2017.
This procedure is called Defibrillation. Sometimes, if the heart is stopped completely, the heart will restart itself within a few seconds and return to a normal electrical pattern.
Between a half hour to three hours after death, the eyelid loses its elasticity, the pupil dilates and there is a distinct change in the cornea, which is normally transparent.
A conscious dying person can know if they are on the verge of dying. Some feel immense pain for hours before dying, while others die in seconds. This awareness of approaching death is most pronounced in people with terminal conditions such as cancer.
What Happens One Hour After Death? At the moment of death, all of the muscles in the body relax (primary flaccidity ). The eyelids lose their tension, the pupils dilate, the jaw may fall open, and the joints and limbs are flexible.
Demographic evidence
The longest living person whose dates of birth and death were verified according to the modern norms of Guinness World Records and the Gerontology Research Group was Jeanne Calment (1875–1997), a French woman who is verified to have lived to 122.
The longest documented and verified human lifespan is that of Jeanne Calment of France (1875–1997), a woman who lived to age 122 years and 164 days. She claimed to have met Vincent van Gogh when she was 12 or 13.
But for one 29-year-old man in Spain, that fear became a reality when, having previously been pronounced dead, he somehow woke up on the autopsy table just as experts were about to open up his body to investigate.
Cardiac arrest can be fatal if it lasts longer than 8 minutes without CPR. Brain damage can happen after just 5 minutes. Cardiac arrest treatment should start right away, even if you're not in the hospital.
Out of hospital Cardiac Arrest and CPR Duration Data
The CPR duration required to achieve a ROSC in >99% of out-of-hospital cardiac patients with a 1-month favorable neurological outcome was 45 min, considering both pre- and in-hospital settings.
The most common way that people die is after their heart stops beating. However, there is limited evidence for how long to wait to determine death once the heart stops.
As it turns out we can use music to guide us, specifically Bee Gee's classic Stayin' Alive. This song has a beat that's exactly 100 beats per minute - the same rate the American Heart Association recommends for chest compressions during CPR.
When cardiac arrest occurs, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) must be started within two minutes. Effective CPR, if started immediately with a witnessed arrest can have positive outcomes. By nine minutes, severe and permanent brain damage is likely. After 10 minutes, the chances of survival are low.
After 10 minutes without oxygen , brain death occurs. Brain death means there is no brain activity. A person needs life support measures like a mechanical ventilator to help them breathe and stay alive.
Your brain stops. Other vital organs, including your kidneys and liver, stop. All your body systems powered by these organs shut down, too, so that they're no longer capable of carrying on the ongoing processes understood as, simply, living.
Visions and Hallucinations
Visual or auditory hallucinations are often part of the dying experience. The appearance of family members or loved ones who have died is common. These visions are considered normal. The dying may turn their focus to “another world” and talk to people or see things that others do not see.
Agonal breathing or agonal gasps are the last reflexes of the dying brain. They are generally viewed as a sign of death, and can happen after the heart has stopped beating.