A woman in the US was literally frozen in the snow for about six hours and yet came back to life. This week, Jean Hilliard, who is currently 62, recalled the episode in an interview with Fox 9. She was trapped in a ditch with a temperature of 22 degrees Celsius after a car accident and was rescued by a friend.
It all happened when Jean, then 19, was returning from meeting friends in inland Minnesota in 1980. Due to the heavy snowfall in the early hours of the morning, she lost control of the vehicle. However, he remembered that his friend Wally Nelson lived in the area and decided to go to his house. After running for nearly an hour, Hilliard slipped and fell facefirst into the snow. In the end she fainted.
According to the newspaper O Globo, she was unconscious for six hours. Jean wasn’t found until the next day, when Nelson saw footprints near her home. The friend said Jean was “frozen like a piece of meat.” And even though her limbs became stiff, her skin turned white, and her eyes were open, she survived.
Wally then rushed Jean to the hospital. Her body was so stiff that doctors didn’t even need a stretcher. The medical professionals warmed her body as quickly as possible, allowing Jean to come back to life. While speaking to the broadcaster, the elderly woman described how she felt during the hours she was frozen. “It’s like someone turned off the lights and I just fell asleep,” he said.
Jean made the news after surviving. (Reproduction)
George Sutter, who was treating Jean at the time, provided details of the case for the New York Times. “His body was cold and completely solid, like a piece of meat that had just been taken out of the freezer,” he recalled. However, a few hours later she woke up and started talking, leaving doctors in disbelief.
Jean Hilliard stayed in the hospital for seven weeks to be monitored and learn to walk again. To date, the elderly woman is the only person who survived without permanent injuries after the “freezing”.