A Technique to Delay Brain Death

“I’d like to give this to my fellow man while there is still time.” I remember this headline from an ad in Popular Science from my youth. Every month I’d get the magazine and see the picture of a gray-haired man, broad smile on his face, and this caption splashed across the page.

You know, I was a kid, and I never did figure out what he was selling. It was a successful long copy ad that ran for years, so lots of people must have sent the $19.95 or whatever he was charging for whatever he was selling, but I didn’t. I was young, and $20 was a lot to me then.

But I do know I have this to give to my fellow man. I have a theory of how to save lives. So here it is. If you ever need this, I hope you’ve read it, and it works for you. It’s only a theory. But after reading it, decide for yourself. Let me know what you think. The first part presented is a condensed version of a press release; the original research paper follows.

A TIME-BUYING PROCEDURE
TO DELAY BRAIN DAMAGE
Theory by Jeff Dobkin ©2007

Imagine this: You’ve just come into your child’s bedroom to tuck her in for the night. Her lips are blue, her face cool. As you reach over to pick her up, her body is limp in your arms. Your child is not breathing. What do you do?

Thousands of times each year this terrifying scene is repeated. If you are the parent of a young child, without a doubt this would be the most horrifying experience of your life. If you don’t know infant CPR, your only option is to watch your child lie there, not breathing, until help arrives. Even if you know CPR, there may be a simple technique you can do immediately to increase the chance of your child’s survival and complete recovery. I would think any possible way to help your child at this time would be welcome.

~ Background ~

It was the winter of 1977. A young boy named Brian Cunningham fell into an icy river and drowned. He was submerged for over half an hour. He had stopped breathing after only two minutes. His heart had stopped. He lay motionless under the water. The boy, by all our definitions, was dead. For well over half an hour this child didn’t take one single breath.

Thirty-eight minutes later he was pulled from the river by a fire rescue team. Contrary to conventional thought, he was resuscitated, revived, and returned to live a perfectly normal life. There was no brain damage. How could this happen?

I was brought up in the ’60s, and was taught when no oxygen was supplied to the brain for a three- or four-minute period, irreversible brain damage occurs. Those were the ’60s. Everyone believed it, even me. It was almost 10 years later that my curiosity finally got the better of me.

Of course, while growing up I was also taught the food groups you needed to eat every day were meat, vegetables and fruits, grains, and dairy. Remember the food pyramid? In the ’70s the USDA recommended you eat two to three servings of meat a day. Perhaps you remember just a few years ago, they changed all that. Now there are new food groups. Fats and oils are out. Meat isn’t really high on the recommended list. Times change.

Just last week vitamins were good for you. This week they’re bad for you. All the changes in medical thinking and medical methods indicate the profession has numerous ideas about almost every condition, and about every issue. They can’t all be correct, because they conflict with each other. New rules apply every day; just ask a different doctor.

Now there are new food groups, and new theories about vitamins. But physicians still cling to the belief that there is only CPR for heart attack victims. Yet even now, after all these years, the effectiveness of CPR is still in question.

I was surprised to read that article in Newsweek in 1977 about a child falling into icy water. When Brian was pulled out of the water with no brain damage after half an hour of being completely submerged, why this happened became a recurring question that haunted me for almost 10 years.

In 1985 I began my research to investigate how some people (especially children) can apparently drown, and upon their resuscitation—sometimes up to 40 minutes later—experience no brain damage. What is it that delays brain damage during this period?

My research showed that hypothermia, created by the cold water, helps delay brain damage. But that’s not the reason these people survive. It is the triggering of a specific reflex that is responsible for saving lives and delaying brain damage. It’s called the Mammalian Diving Reflex.

Further investigation showed the specific technique of triggering this reflex can be accomplished by a simple facial immersion in cold water. Only the face of the victim needs to be placed in cold water to trigger this reaction. All that is necessary to delay brain damage is to trigger this reflex by applying cold, wet compresses to the victim’s face.

Specifically, the facial immersion in cold water is what saves victims in cold-water drownings. From my findings I wrote the enclosed paper. Thousands of lives are needlessly being lost each year, and thousands more people unnecessarily suffer brain damage.

Heart attacks are the fourth largest cause of death in the U.S. Victims of suffocation, electrocution, drug overdose, SIDS—all these people—and infants—could possibly be helped by the early triggering of this natural oxygen-conserving reflex. If just one child (the diving reflex is most pronounced in children) with SIDS can be saved with the technique of triggering the diving reflex by application of cold water to the face, it is well worth all the research I have done.

~ Personal Note ~

But before I get too far ahead of myself, I acknowledge this is a tough subject. You don’t have to run this story. Maybe you don’t need to present a controversial theory like this to your audience. Just stuff this article in a file cabinet, and no hard feelings. I hope no one in your audience will ever need this in an emergency. I hope you won’t, either.

But if you’re interested in helping to save lives, and if you want to present some good news—maybe you should take another look. If you’ve ever wondered how people survive cold-water drownings, if you are interested in the chance, just the chance, of saving one infant from SIDS, your consideration to bring this story to your audience is appreciated.

One more note. Quite frankly, I can be sued. I know this. I’m ready to be sued. I’ve held back this theory since 1986 (when I completed my initial research) for fear of being sued. If someone tries this on a dying person and the person does die, I probably will be sued. You can sue anyone for anything; all you need is a lawyer. And there are plenty of lawyers.

In this lawsuit-happy world, where lawyers run hard-sell ads for suing people on TV, I’m sure I will be sued. But do you know what else? This theory is worth all the money I have.

I am prepared to lose the house I live in, my business, and all my money, for the chance—just the chance—to save one child from sudden infant death syndrome. I now realize, although I am at risk of losing everything I have worked for all my life, if this saves just one child, all the wealth I have will be worth it. How about if it were your child? Wouldn’t you want to know about this technique?

“In a terrifying moment you see her on the bottom of the pool. You immediately pull her out, but she is completely lifeless.”

Take an example. Just after you rushed into your house to answer the phone and grab a soda, your child falls into your swimming pool. Within a few seconds she slips under with hardly a ripple, and sinks to the bottom. Within two minutes she lies motionless at the bottom of the pool, not breathing. You go out to check on her—remember, just two minutes have passed—and in a terrifying moment you see her on the bottom of the pool. You immediately pull her out, but she is completely lifeless.

To trigger the diving reflex, the water must be 58 degrees or cooler, so this reflex did not occur. Your daughter now has two more minutes before irreversible brain damage occurs, followed directly by brain death. What would you do? Would you want the option of now triggering a natural oxygen-conserving reflex to possibly delay the onset of brain damage?

This technique may not make me any money; but I believe it will save lives. If it does, I will have rewards beyond my wildest dreams. I am no longer willing to hold this theory back in fear of being sued and losing my material possessions. There is nothing I own that has close to the value of the life of a single child.

~ The Life-Saving Technique ~

Here is a description of the Dobkin Technique for delaying brain damage. It can be done by a child. It can be explained over the phone. It can be self-administered. Initiating the reflex takes well under a minute. It is a natural occurrence: nature’s own way of protecting her children.

“This one paragraph may save your life…”

In the event of any oxygen deprivation to the brain—such as heart attack, drowning, suffocation, electrocution, drug overdose, trauma, or SIDS—the first action a person should take is to place ice cold water, cold wet towels, or cold compresses over the eyes and face of the victim. Leave the nose and mouth uncovered for breathing. Keep towels or compresses cold, and leave them on the face. The water must be 58 degrees or cooler, which is the mean temperature of the waters of the world. For extra protection, apply iced compresses to the back of the neck at the base of the head to cool the blood in the brain. This is all that is necessary. It’s this simple, it’s this fast.

This is the whole technique to trigger the Mammalian Diving Reflex, a natural oxygen-conserving reflex found in all mammals. It is nature’s own reaction to delay brain damage and sustain life. Unbelievable? This is the whole technique in one paragraph. One paragraph that may save your life. Or the life of someone you love.

Take another example. You are staying at a friend’s house, 20 minutes out in the country. On a warm summer night you are sitting on the porch when your spouse—who has been feeling pale and weak all day—suffers a heart attack. You call for an ambulance, 20 minutes away. You don’t know CPR. You now have two choices. You can helplessly watch your spouse, who has just stopped breathing, lie there on the floor. Or you can trigger the reflex. Which would you rather do?

Let me be more specific about using Dobkin’s Technique. “If something isn’t done right now, this person will die.” This is when the technique is used.

With hundreds of hours of research and investigation of the oxygen-conserving reflex, I am available to you and your audience by phone or in person. But even as just a news brief, I would like you to release this information, to offer a choice to those who may stand helpless as their spouse or child lies dying from drowning, heart attack, electrocution, suffocation, SIDS, drug overdose, or any other trauma where there is danger of oxygen deprivation.

~ Final Note ~

This technique is not approved, and may never be accepted by any governmental body or the medical community.

The only way it has even the remotest possibility of being accepted by any medical group or sanctioned by any governmental body is if I can spend the $20 million or so it typically takes to run the tests up the government flagpole. Then spend the next six to ten years collecting empirical evidence, and filling out stacks and stacks of paperwork from the government for its approval. Then waiting for approval while they do the same tests. And spend the same amount of money. Then, since it’s not patentable, and is a natural occurrence without the use of drugs, pills, or injections, no pharmaceutical company in the world will take a penny’s worth of interest in it. So this technique will be unauthorized forever.

The medical community won’t sanction this technique either. The medical community itself can’t even agree if vitamins are good for you. Do you think they will, in unison, agree this natural occurrence can be a real rescue tool? To wait for any approval means thousands of lives that can be saved, will be lost. This technique is too valuable to be put in that political arena and bounced around forever. The decision to initiate this oxygen-conserving reflex is within each individual. It’s not going to come from the AMA or the government.

The choice is clear to me: this technique will save lives. It will provide an added margin of safety to victims. It is a time-buying procedure to delay brain damage. This paper isn’t about whether this technique works. This reflex has already worked on thousands of cold-water drowning victims. This paper is about the knowledge each individual should have to be able to choose for himself whether he wants to use this technique or not. After that, if your audience believes they would like to wait for the government to give the OK, they can choose not to initiate this reflex in an emergency. Once they have this knowledge, it is up to the individual to make the choice. This paper is about the choice everyone should have.

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Quite frankly, my list of people saved needs more names. If I had 1,000 names, more people would listen. If I had 10,000 names, everyone would listen. Including the government and the AMA. If anyone has survived a cold-water drowning, please let me know. I’ll compile the data into a presentable and accountable document if you send experiences to my attention. If I can get enough response, I can compile the data as proof of the effectiveness of this reflex, and the technique will become an accepted life-saving procedure. Thank you.

A Technique For Delaying Brain Death
In Heart Attack Victims
Theory by Jeffrey Dobkin • Copyright 1986, 2007
Box 100 • Merion Station, PA 19066 • 610-642-1000

While current medical methods cannot entirely prevent heart attacks, there is an emergency procedure that can save lives. A simple technique can reduce or delay the possibility of brain damage and brain death to a heart attack victim for up to an hour—or more.
If this procedure saves one life, it is fully worth all the time and effort I have spent in research.
The Technique seeks to prevent or delay the irreversible brain damage thought to occur when no oxygen reaches the brain for four minutes.1 It is used as a time-buying procedure to save the lives of heart attack victims and victims of suffocation, drowning, respiratory failure, and drug overdose. Perhaps it will even help SIDS (crib death) or stroke victims until proper medical equipment and personnel are summoned and arrive.
The Technique can be applied by a child or may be self-administered in almost any home. It takes less than 30 seconds to initiate and the results are as immediate.2 It works on both conscious and unconscious victims. It can be explained on the phone in under a minute.
Almost everyone has heard of a boy drowning in cold water—then, after half an hour of submersion, being resuscitated with no ill effects and no brain damage. The Canadian Medical Association Journal documented such a drowning: After half an hour of complete submersion, a boy was rescued from the icy waters where he fell.3 He was resuscitated and, with proper medical treatment, had no lasting side effects. There was no cerebral damage, although his brain received no oxygen for over half an hour.
Research has provided additional case study after case study of extended cold water submersion with no brain damage to resuscitated victims. Article after article, story after story, of people deprived of oxygen for up to an hour—with no ill effects or brain damage. What is it that protects the brain from damage in cases of oxygen deprivation over the four-minute limit? And can this be applied as a lifesaving technique to heart attack victims?
In all vertebrates, there is an automatic reflex called the Mammalian Diving Reflex. It occurs naturally as a life-preserving mechanism during cold water submersion. More commonly called the “Diving Reflex,” it is a protective oxygen-conserving reflex to keep brain and body alive during submergence and possible drowning in cold water. The body prepares itself to sustain life. It is a totally natural protective mechanism serving Homo sapiens, originating from hundreds of thousands of years of evolvement.
Natural engagement of the diving reflex is what has enabled drowning victims to be revived successfully after cold water submersion for as long as an hour, with few or no ill effects. The Technique seeks to trigger this reflex in a crisis. The Technique may never replace CPR. The purpose of this article is not to compete with CPR, but to help sustain the life of the hundreds of thousands of victims of heart attacks or suffocation, thrust into a life-and-death situation, who may not be near people trained in CPR.
If you are not skilled in CPR, and you live in the country where an ambulance is 20 minutes away, and someone close to you has a heart attack—the options are frightening. Without the initiation of the Technique, a person whose heart stops has only four minutes until irreversible brain damage occurs. After you call for help, you can watch. If you think this is a horrifying alternative, I couldn’t agree more. Or you can try this Technique.
The Technique may work to save lives in conjunction with CPR. There is also the possibility it may not work at all; this is, after all, a theory. But the fact that it just may work makes it worth closer study. When there is no other immediate remedy, this may be put into practice in an emergency. What would you have your spouse do if you lived in the country and you had a heart attack?
“The Technique for Delaying Brain Damage” is simple and easy to initiate. In natural surroundings, the diving reflex occurs when a mammal falls into water 58 degrees Fahrenheit—the mean temperature of the waters of the world—or colder. But this reflex may also be triggered by only a facial immersion in cold water (58 degrees or colder).

The Technique is to apply cold water, wet towels, or wet ice packs to the victim’s face—especially the eyes—to trigger the diving reflex in the event of heart or respiratory failure.

This procedure starts the oxygen-conserving mammalian diving reflex. Here is what happens:

Bradycardia can start in as little as four seconds or can take up to thirty seconds, depending on what part of the breath cycle the person is in when cold water is applied to the face. In man, cold water facial immersion usually induces a 15% to 30% decrease in heart rate from normal resting values. The reflex is strong enough to override other seemingly vital reflexes; i.e., it can completely obliterate the tachycardia that accompanies moderately severe exercise on a bicycle ergometer and can abruptly reduce heart rate from 130–140 beats per minute to 80 or less, despite continuation of the exercise.4 Bradycardia is initiated by parasympathetic vagal activity.
Skin and muscle blood flow decrease through a powerful constriction of peripheral arteries. Peripheral vaso-constriction brought about by sympathetic activity maintains blood pressure. At the same time, systemic arterial pressure, especially diastolic, is increased. This lower heart rate and redistribution of central blood flow supports more necessary life-preserving organs.
The reflex triggers anaerobic metabolism, shown by a fall in arterial pH. There is an increase in concentrations of lactic and other organic acids, and a rise in blood carbon dioxide and potassium. This indicates that the body’s cells are using less oxygen.
In a study by Wolf, Schneider and Groover, arterial oxygen saturation fell very little during immersion when the reflex occured.5
Because arterial oxygen saturation falls very little, the term “oxygen conserving” is appropriate for the reflex—an animal is enabled to survive without breathing for a much longer period than its supply of oxygen would warrant under ordinary circumstances.6
In Diving Reflex experiments, Charles Richet tied off the tracheae of two groups of ducks, then held one group under cold water. The ducks held under water lived more than three times as long as their partners not immersed in cold water.
In further studies of nerve-cutting experiments, Harold Anderson of Oslo, Norway, documented that the Diving Reflex, as manifested by slowing of the heart, depended on the integrity of the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve. With the nerve intact, a duck would trigger the diving reflex and survive under water for 20 minutes. When the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve was severed (bilaterally), immersed ducks failed to slow their heart rates when cold water was applied to their faces and survived only six or seven minutes.7
Accentuation of the reflex to the greatest degree occurs when the facial immersion in cold water is accompanied by fear. The more fearful the condition, the stronger the trigger to bring about the reflex and the greater the chance a strong oxygen-conserving reflex will take place.
In patients resuscitated by the team of a special ambulance service run by the Department of Anesthesia at Ulleval Hospital (from an article entitled “Resuscitation of Drowning Victims”), the most successful outcome was observed in those with cardiac arrest following drowning.
In an article in Newsweek, drowning specialist Dr. Martin J. Nemiroff (Michigan University Medical Center) suggests that the involuntary diving reflex saves lives of drowning victims by delaying suffocation—by shunting oxygen from extremities and sending it toward the heart, brain, and lungs—and reduces the possibility of brain damage and death.8 A photo in the Newsweek article shows Dr. Nemiroff with Brian Cunningham, who was revived after 38 minutes under water.
Dr. Nemiroff has successfully revived numerous victims of cold water drowning who were submerged for 30 minutes or more and were pronounced dead. He says that what saved the victims was the automatic activation of the Mammalian Diving Reflex and the coldness of the water.9
It is my conclusion that if the diving reflex can save the lives of drowning victims by delaying brain damage, then triggering the reflex should also delay brain damage in heart attack victims.
A discussion in a Scientific American study of the human body’s ability to resist drowning states that the Diving Reflex and cold water reduce the oxygen demand of tissues, extending the period of survival without external oxygen to as long as one hour. Previously, irreversible brain damage was thought to occur after four minutes without oxygen.10
The Diving Reflex is currently used by the medical profession in conversion of paroxysmal atrial tachycardia.11,12,13 The Technique is to immerse the face of a person in a tub or basin of water 50 degrees or cooler. Since the technique produces an almost instant conversion to normal sinus rhythm and is not invasive, the use of the Diving Reflex is recommended by many authors and cited as a safe, effective treatment. In one study, nine out of 10 patients converted in 15–38 seconds, with an average of 23 seconds.14 Its use is also the treatment of choice for converting a supraventricular tachycardia in children and infants, in whom the Diving Reflex effect is most pronounced.15
In a letter to Mr. Dobkin, Dr. Linus Pauling surmises there are two ways in which the damage to the brain might be delayed for some time when the oxygen to the blood is stopped.
“The brain can tolerate a certain amount of decrease in the partial pressure of oxygen supplied by the blood. If the circulation of the blood to the brain and to the tissues continues at its normal rate, the oxygen is used up rather fast, most of it (75%) by tissues other than the brain. Accordingly the induction of bradycardia, delaying the rate at which oxygen is brought to the tissues by the blood, would conserve the supply of oxygen and permit anoxic damage to be delayed by a considerable amount.
“There is a second way of delaying brain damage by anoxia. This way is to cool the brain. The biochemical reactions involved in anoxic damage have a high temperature coefficient, so that cooling the brain by a few degrees can slow down the rate at which anoxic damage occurs to perhaps one-tenth of its rate.”16 This letter suggests that ice or cold water also be applied to the neck, so that the blood is cooled and the brain itself is cooled in the region in which anoxic damage occurs. I concur with Dr. Pauling and recommend that after the face is immersed with ice packs or cold water, cold water be applied to the neck and the base of the hairline at the back of the head.
After countless hours of research, I am convinced that the Technique to delay brain damage will save lives. The technique of applying cold water to the face of conscious or unconscious heart attack or suffocation victims should be a known lifesaving procedure. It may be used in the event of any oxygen deprivation to the brain. Its procedure can be explained over the telephone, self-administered, or applied by a friend or child with no training. And while it will not stop heart attacks from happening, it will buy precious time until proper medical equipment and personnel arrive.
The Technique is quick and easy to apply. It is a time-buying procedure—when time is of the essence. It is nature’s own way of protecting us—a non-invasive action that can be initiated immediately by someone with no training. This natural, life-conserving reflex is common enough to be found in all mammals and powerful enough to save someone’s life in a traumatic moment.
Further investigation and clinical evaluation may be necessary, but from the empirical evidence I have uncovered, I recommend this reflex be initiated in time of emergent need. I hope this article is a catalyst to spur new research. My reward? I would like my name assigned to the Technique; after all, Heimlich has his maneuver. My goal? I hope at least one life is saved.
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The Dobkin Technique triggers nature’s own protective oxygen-saving mechanism to save lives. It is the same reflex that has saved children and adults from drowning even though they were completely submerged in cold water for up to an hour. Your comments are most welcome. If you know someone who has been revived from a cold water drowning, please write to me. Also, if this technique has been used, please let me know the details. Thank you.

Jeffrey Warren Dobkin • P.O. Box 100 • Merion Station, PA 19066

Abstract References:
CPR, Diving Reflex, Heart Attack, Brain Damage, SIDS, Suffocation, Respiratory Failure.
~ Abstract ~
Help for heart attack victims—when no one is around who knows CPR, initiate “The Dobkin Technique for Delaying Brain Death”: Apply cold water or cold wet towels (58 degrees or colder) to the face and eyes of victim—leaving nose and mouth clear to breathe. After this, supplemental help may be to apply additional cold wet cloths to the base of the back of the head and to the back of the neck. This is an emergency time-buying procedure to delay brain death by triggering the Diving Reflex. The Diving Reflex is a natural oxygen-conserving reflex which can delay the irreversible brain damage thought to occur within four minutes of oxygen deprivation. Works on conscious and unconscious victims; may be applied by child or self-administered; technique may be described over the phone. Works in under 30 seconds. Works in victims of suffocation, SIDS, drownings, drug overdose, choking, electrocution, and other victims of respiratory failure or deprivation of oxygen for any reason.

Endnotes
1. Scientific American, August 1977, 57.
2. S. Wolf, R.A. Schneider, and M.E. Groover, “Further Studies on the Circulatory and Metabolic Alterations of the Oxygen-Conserving (Diving) Reflex in Man,” (paper presented before the American Clinical and Climatological Association, Colorado Springs, Colo., 21 October 1964).
3. P.K. Hunt, “Effect and Treatment of the Diving Reflex,” Canadian Medical Association Journal (21 December 1974).
4. J. Atkins, S. Leshin, C. Skelton, and K. Widenthal, “The Diving Reflex Used to Treat Paroxysmal Atrial Tachycardia,” Lancet (4 January 1975): 12.
5. Wolf et al., “Further Studies.”
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Newsweek, 22 August 1977, 79.
9. New York Times, 7 August 1977, 20.
10. Scientific American, August 1977, 57.
11. Atkins et al., “Diving Reflex,” 12.
12. Newsweek, 13 January 1975, 50.
13. P.G. Landsberg, “Bradycardia During Human Diving,” South African Medical Journal (5 April 1975): 626-630.
14. M.A. Wayne, “Conversion of Paroxysmal Atrial Tachycardia by Facial Immersion in Ice Water,” Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians (6 May 1976).
15. V. Whitman, “The Diving Reflex in Termination of Supraventricular Tachycardia in Childhood,” Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians, letter to the editor (December 1976).
16. Letter to Jeffrey Dobkin from Dr. Linus Pauling, dated September 2, 1992.
Copyright Permission: Permission is hereby granted to use the writing of this technique to delay brain damage in whole or in part to save lives, or to increase the public awareness of this technique as a lifesaving emergency procedure—as long as credit is given to Jeffrey Dobkin and the technique referred to as “The Dobkin Technique for Delaying Brain Death".