02:46 PM PDT on Sunday, September 11, 2005

JEAN ENERSEN / KING 5 News

Jim Arrowsmith doesn't remember a thing about Nov. 22, 2004.

"Either at the beginning of my jog or at the end of my jog, when I was doing stretches, I collapsed," he said.

Jim went into cardiac arrest and stopped breathing.

Paramedics injected him with a quart-and-a-half of cold saline to drop his body temperature. It's the first study in the country to do this before cardiac arrest patients get to a hospital. So far, the results look encouraging.

"Mild hypothermia may be the first therapy in a long time that may actually improve survival in a lot of these cardiac arrest patients," said Dr. Francis Kim, a cardiologist at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

When the heart stops beating, blood and oxygen stop flowing to the brain. Cold saline drops the body temperature to about 90 degrees. This stops inflammation and keeps brain cells alive.

"Our success in resuscitating these people will be the patient's ultimate success because they'll be able to leave the hospital without being neurologically impaired," said paramedic David Coatsworth.

Researchers already know that cooling the body after patients get to the hospital improves survival rates. They want to see if cooling within minutes can help even more.

Jim is convinced.

"I have complete recovery. I didn't lose any bodily functions or brain functions," he said.

Nintey percent of cardiac arrest patients die, but Jim is one of the lucky ones.

In addition to improving survival rates, researchers hope the saline solution will also help prevent brain damage.