'Frozen Man' Resuscitated After Being Unconscious for a Month

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A young man was successfully resuscitated after being found frozen and near death.

The frozen man was Justin Smith from McAdoo, Pennsylvania and he was found unconscious in the snow the next morning by his father Don Smith. Justin was reportedly going home on the night of Feb. 20, 2015, at around 9:30 pm after a gathering with friends at Tresckow Fire Company. It was snowing that night and the subzero temperatures that ranged from 4 degrees Fahrenheit to below zero made him black out.

Don immediately knew that the boot stuck in the snowbank was his son's, whom he found without a pulse and heartbeat.

"He was blue... his face, he was lifeless. I checked for a pulse, I checked for a heartbeat, there was nothing," he said, as reported by ABC News.

He was immediately rushed to at the Lehigh Valley Hospital in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

The paramedics performed CPR on Justin's cold limp body for hours. A coroner was called as the 26-year-old had no signs of life. Doctor Gerald Coleman of the Hazleton hospital ordered for him to be given more care in another facility.

"But something inside me just said, 'I need to give this person a chance,'" Coleman said, as reported by the Times Tribune.

Doctor Coleman told the paramedics: "This is probably going to be a futile effort but I think we need to do our best for him. Okay?"

He was transferred via a helicopter to another hospital, Cedar Crest campus in Allentown with a special machine called extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). The machine reportedly helps unfreeze the blood to help it circulate inside the body again.

After more than an hour in the machine, Justin's heart started beating. However, he wasn't conscious still. In the course of the next few days, his brain started showing normal activity after being frozen. His toes and pinky fingers were amputated due to frostbite but he has miraculously survived the ordeal.

"The love that these doctors showed me at Lehigh Valley Network. I just wanted to thank every single person who had a part in this," Justin said, via 6ABC. "It's amazing and life is good now, you know."

Justin was grateful to the doctors who refused to give up on him. Thanks to their quick thinking and initiative, Justin was able to go back to his schooling at Penn State where he aims to have a degree in Psychology.