When does biological death actually occur in humans? What is death?

Question

I wanted to know at what point is someone biologically dead.
I have read the stories of people drowning in icy rivers for 30 min and being revived with CPR where those people actually dead? or just in some sort of deep comma? because in my opinion if you can be brought back you never really died in the first place.

I am not really looking for religious answers they dont help a bit

Answer 1

Once the doctor or coroner has declared there is no chance of revival, and a heartbeat cannot be achieved without constant intervention, the person is considered dead. However, sometimes they're wrong.

Answer 2

In general 4 minutes without oxygen delivery to the brain results in brain death, you may be able to get the heart beating again but the patient is basically a vegetable.

In cases of cold drownings the body is cooled to the point that metabolism slows down and less oxygen is needed by the brain and other organs, extending the 4 minute limit by an uncertain amount of time. In these cases death is not declared until the body is warm and dead.

Answer 3

Think of what makes you laugh and cry. Your brain tells you to get out of the rain. Your thoughts are who you are. When your brain no longer works you are dead. You don't exist anymore. Machines are need to cerculate blood and oxygen for your organs if your a organ donor because your brain doesn't tell them to work anymore. So you are dead when your brain ceases to function. For our body is only a vessel with no character. Your brain is everything that makes up you.

When I took a basic rescue coarse (cpr) we talk of hypothermia. If you fall in icy water, your heart rate can drop to well below normal. Almost undetectable when someone feels your pulse. But your faint weak heartbeat is just enough to feed oxygen to your brain and organs minimizing damage. On the verge of death but not quite.

Answer 4

it is approximately so>
first you stop breathing
you lack the oxygen
your brain cells start to die because of oxygen inssufficiency
at 5minutes the mean time for adult, babies can stand more.. you are braindead or seriously injured, high =human functions dying first

the rest of the body still lives.. when you lack oxygen for more than 5 minutes, you are optimal donor of the tissues like heart kidney, etc.

the cold water reduces the brains activity and consumption of oxygen, that is why the cooled people can /not must essentially/ survive longer expositions to oxzgen insufficiency.

the rest of dying process is simple other cells lack oxygen too, and start to die off. some tissues like skin is reported to grow and produce keratin /i.e. hair,nails/ for several days. by that time none of your livers is a good transplant anyway.
problem with the clinical and biological death comes when you are in the coma, your brain is working, kept on machinary ventilation, heart beats, but you are not reacting. even worse you can just show lower functions of brain. then there is the problem when and who shall terminate your existence.

Answer 5

It really doesn't seem like you want an answer other than your own opinion so why ask? Reread you 2nd to the last statement.
But here goes...
Anyone can be kept alive by machines. Life ends when all brain activity ceases.

Answer 6

some one is dead when it is totaly impossible to revieve them or there brain is nologer able to function and your right if some one comes back to life they were probly never dead to begin with just like in a comma

Answer 7

really i dont know. but it is a smart qustion i would of asked it too

Answer 8

Here is what i found, hope this helps!
In medicine, biological details and definitions of death have become increasingly complicated as technology advances.

Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of death have been problematic. Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation posed a challenge, and rendered the previous definition inadequate. This earlier definition of death is now called "clinical death", and even after it occurs, breathing and heartbeat may be restarted in some cases. Events which were causally linked to death in the past are now prevented from having an effect; even without a functioning heart and lungs, a person can be sustained with life support devices. In addition to such extremes, there are a growing number of people who would quickly die if their organ transplants or artificial pacemakers failed.

Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death": People are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases (cf. persistent vegetative state). It is presumed that a stoppage of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. However, suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during sleep, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference. Identifying the moment of death is important in cases of transplantation, as organs for transplant (the brain excluded) must be harvested as quickly as possible after the death of the body.

The possession of brain activity, or ability to resume brain activity, is a necessary condition to legal personhood in the United States. "It appears that once brain death has been determined … no criminal or civil liability will result from disconnecting the life-support devices." (Dority v. Superior Court of San Bernardino County, 193 Cal.Rptr. 288, 291 (1983))

Those maintaining that only the neo-cortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness sometimes argue that only electrical activity there should be considered when defining death. Eventually it is possible that the criterion for death will be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone. However, at present, in most places the more conservative definition of death — irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the neo-cortex — has been adopted (for example the Uniform Determination Of Death Act in the United States). In 2005, the case of Terri Schiavo brought the question of brain death and artificial sustenance to the front of American politics.

Even by whole-brain criteria, the determination of brain death can be complicated. EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses, while certain drugs, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, or hypothermia can suppress or even stop brain activity on a temporary basis. Because of this, hospitals have protocols for determining brain death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals under defined conditions.

There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then coming back to life, sometimes days later in their own coffin, or when embalming procedures are just about to begin. Owing to significant scientific advancements in the Victorian era, some people in Britain became obsessively worried about living after being declared dead. Premature burial was a particular possibility which concerned many; inventors therefore created methods of alerting the outside world to one's status: these included surface bells and flags connected to the coffin interior by string, and glass partitions in the coffin-lid which could be smashed by a hammer or a system of pulleys (what many failed to realize was that the pulley system would either not work because of the soil outside the coffin, or that the glass would smash in the person's face, covering them in broken glass and earth).

A first responder is not authorized to pronounce a patient dead. Some EMT training manuals specifically state that a person is not to be assumed dead unless there are clear and obvious indications that death has occurred . These indications include mortal decapitation, rigor mortis (rigidity of the body), livor mortis (blood pooling in the part of the body at lowest elevation), decomposition, incineration, or other bodily damage that is clearly inconsistent with life. If there is any possibility of life and in the absence of a do not resuscitate (DNR) order, emergency workers are instructed to begin rescue and not end it until a patient has been brought to a hospital to be examined by a physician. This frequently leads to situation of a patient being pronounced dead on arrival (DOA). However, some states allow paramedics to pronounce death. This is usually based on specific criteria. Aside from the above mentioned conditions include advanced measures including CPR, intubation, IV access, and administiring medicines without regaining a pulse for at least 20 minutes.

In cases of electrocution, CPR for an hour or longer can allow stunned nerves to recover, allowing an apparently-dead person to survive. People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room. This "diving response", in which metabolic activity and oxygen requirements are minimal, is something humans share with cetaceans called the mammalian diving reflex.

As medical technologies advance, ideas about when death occurs may have to be re-evaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death (as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death). The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead. Therefore, the concept of information theoretical death has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death actually occurs, though the concept has few practical applications outside of the field of cryonics.

There have been some scientific attempts to bring dead organisms back to life, but with limited success. In science fiction scenarios where such technology is readily available, real death is distinguished from reversible death.