The Miracle of Anna Bågenholm: Trapped Under Ice for Over an Hour and Brought Back to Life

Anna Bagenholm. Photo: FlexiTog EU

On May 20, 1999, Anna Bågenholm, a 29-year-old medical student from Sweden was skiing with friends close to Narvik, in northern Norway. Everything seemed fine, until Anna lost her balance and slid on a piece of ice. She fell head-first into a freezing stream and the ice sealed over rapidly, sealing Anna underneath the surface.

Her friends tried to help her, but the current continued to pull her. For more than forty minutes, Anna survived under the surface and attempted to breathe, the water near freezing. Finally, she found a small air pocket between the ice. It lasted long enough to survive, but not for long.

Eventually, her body began to shut down because of the hypothermia. About an hour later, her heart stopped and when rescues finally got Anna out of the ice, she was cold and unresponsive, what appeared to rescuers to be dead.

However, doctors at Tromsø University Hospital did not think so. Her body temperature was a dangerously low 13.7 °C. With much effort, she was put on a heart-lung machine and slowly warmed over some hours. After several hours, there were no observable signs of consciousness or life. Then, at the end of almost nine hours, Anna’s heart began to beat again.

Upon awakening, she was wholly alert and without neurologic damage. She did experience nerve damage to her hands and feet but she completely recovered. Later, she became a radiologist, and today, she works at the hospital where her life was saved.

All of this has changed the way that doctors treat patients with hypothermia, and it demonstrates that sometimes what seems impossible is really just the first step.