Doctors to test suspended animation

CNET reports that doctors and scientists are beginning to test out suspended animation as a way to keep critically-wounded patients alive. According to the report:

The technique will initially be used on 10 patients whose wounds would otherwise be lethal in an attempt to buy the surgeons some time. It works, as suggested by science fiction, by cooling the body — but not by applying an external temperature change.

The procedure has been performed on pigs, but this would be the first time the technique is used on humans. 

Dr. Samuel Tisherman told New Scientist, “We are suspending life, but we don’t like to call it suspended animation because it sounds like science fiction.”