• Question: Is it possible to make a dead person become alive again if you put healthy living organs inside the body of a dead person?

    Asked by 592xygg42 to Gavin, Karen, Mark, Michel, Roisin on 14 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Michel Destrade

      Michel Destrade answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Depends how long they’re dead. Cells die after a while when they’re starved of oxygen and then there’s no coming back. There are new techniques now where they cool down the body to low temperature and that slows down how fast cells die and gives more time to surgeons to do their job. So some people actually die (cardiac arrest) and then come back to life! Can’t be that pleasant though.

    • Photo: Mark Kennedy

      Mark Kennedy answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Michel has answered this really well, but I want to ask you a philosophical question about this. If I have a body, and I replace all of their organs (including their brain) and we (somehow) bring them back to life – are they really the same person? Even though all their bits are different?

    • Photo: Karen

      Karen answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      No, not of the person is dead. If for some reason they are put into a medically induced coma or their core temperature has been reduced pending transplant they can then have a healthy organ transplanted. However if you are brain dead with no brain stem activity no amount of organ transplantation will bring you back to life.

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