Woman 'Dead' for 42 Minutes Brought Back to Life

An Australian woman was brought back to life after being clinically dead for 42 minutes, the Herald Sun reports. Vanessa Tanasio, a 41-year-old mother of two, collapsed while getting her kids ready for school a week ago. She'd had a heart attack, and was declared clinically dead soon after she was brought to the hospital, the Brisbane Times reports. But the cardiology team was able to save her using a high-tech new machine that gave her CPR for 30 minutes, keeping her blood flowing to her brain and other organs while doctors unblocked an artery. Her heart was then successfully shocked into beating again.

Without the $15,000, battery-powered LUCAS 2 or "thumper," her doctors would have had to do CPR manually while taking short breaks to perform the coronary angiogram and angioplasty. (The machine ran through two full batteries on Tanasio.) "It’s truly a miracle that after 40 minutes of reduced circulation that she is alive and well and completely cognizant," says the hospital director. "I would be dead if it wasn't for the thumper machine," Tanasio says. She was set to be released yesterday, and adds that she's given up smoking. (More cardiac arrest stories.)