Rapidly cooling the body might also enhance the chances of survival after cardiac arrest.

Doctors have long traded stories of patients who recovered after apparently drowning in icy waters. Their survival is a testament to the power of hypothermia — cooling living tissue below normal temperatures. Now researchers are calling on the same principle to minimize the damage of strokes or cardiac arrest.

Transplant specialists rely on hypothermia when they load donor hearts or livers into portable coolers for transport to another city. The cold helps to preserve the tissue by slowing down any chemical reactions that would otherwise harm the organ cut off from its blood supply. Protective chilling is also standard practice during heart bypass surgery, when a heart-lung machine cools the…

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