Doctors use hypothermia to save stroke patients

CINCINNATI - Hypothermia can be deadly.

Getting too cold can cause your body to shut down.

But using that theory, doctors are now using hypothermia to help save the lives of stroke patients.

Lena and Clifford Hooe began their life together with a kick-kick-turn and slide. It's been 20 years... and they've never stopped dancing.

From tennis, to Taekwondo, Clifford lives to learn. He was off to kickboxing class when he was hit with the unexpected, a stroke.

Doctors treated this first stroke with drugs. Clifford recovered completely, but then, a second stroke.

Clifford was paralyzed on his left side. Doctors at Cedars Sinai used hypothermia to cool his body, stopping inflammation and slowing his metabolism, allowing his brain time to rest.

Doctors say if they begin to cool bodies within six hours, they have the chance for a complete salvage.

An ice cold device sits in the body's largest vein and cools the blood directly.

The body's cooled to 33 degrees for 24 hours. Then it's slowly brought back to normal temperature. Doctor Patrick Lyden says next to clot-busting drugs, he views hypothermia as the second-biggest breakthrough of his lifetime.

Although this stroke slowed Clifford down,without the hypothermia treatment, things could have been much worse. He's thankful for his doctors..and his dancing partner.

Twenty hospitals across the country, including University Hospital in Cincinnati, are currently using hypothermia, but only in patients under 80 years old because there is a risk of pneumonia.