Controversial Hypothermia Therapy for Injured Singer
HARRIS: On the second deadly crane accident in 10 days, investigators want to know what went wrong. This time it happened in Florida. Part of a construction frame broke off and plunged 30 stories slamming into this house. Look at these pictures here. Two people were killed. Five other people hurt. The house was an office for construction workers building a condo next door. Less than two weeks ago you may recall a crane accident in New York killed seven people. Celebrity chef Paul Prudhomme keeps serving up food Cajun style, of course, that despite being brazed in the arm by a falling bullet. It happened yesterday morning. He was setting up his cooking tent at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. He felt a sting, shook his sleeve and a bullet fell to the ground. Prudhomme didn't need medical attention. He was at the course to cook for the players, caddies and guests, and cook he did through the afternoon. Singer Emilio Navaira, a terrible bus accident leaves him with a traumatic brain injury. Doctors in Texas have lowered his body temperature trying desperately to save his life. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is with us from New York this morning. And Sanjay, boy, this was -- the pictures from this accident, horrible, but here's what's interesting about it. We've always heard hypothermia is dangerous. How does this help someone with a brain injury?</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's interesting, Tony, and it is still controversial. But this idea of lowering the body temperature, some of the risks of it, and the reasons it's controversial, it can cause cardiac arrhythmias, it can cause blood clotting problems. And these are all things that you worry about after a trauma. But the whole idea here, Tony, is to try and put the brain to sleep for a little while. Put it to sleep while it tries to repair itself. You want to keep the swelling down. They actually put this vest that sort of goes over the chest, over the thighs, and circulates this cool fluid through the skin, and that lowers the body temperature to about 91.5. Take a look at what it hopefully does. Reduces swelling in the brain, prevents cells from dying. Tony, it's a critical period within those first few hours after the injury...</s>HARRIS: Yes.</s>GUPTA: ...you want to keep those cells live and let them repair themselves. And also you have several different active centers around the brain. You want to make sure they're communicating one with the other. Hypothermia seems to help there as well. Tony, as you know, you and I talked about this.</s>HARRIS: Yes.</s>GUPTA: It is controversial. You remember Kevin Everett.</s>HARRIS: That's right. That's right.</s>GUPTA: The football player. He had a spinal cord injury. That spinal cord injury -- he's walking today, terrific news. It's -- he had hypothermia therapy as well. It's unclear how much the hypothermia actually helped him, but this is something that's starting to be done more and more for the reasons that I told you -- Tony.</s>HARRIS: Well, that's interesting, because we've been hearing in Navaira's, the next 24 to 48 hours are critical. So I guess we'll just keep an eye out on this situation and maybe we'll get an update from you?</s>GUPTA: Yes, I mean, doctors say, you know, if you have to assign a number to it, they say 65 to 75 percent chance of survival.</s>HARRIS: Wow.</s>GUPTA: He has lung injuries, he has spine injuries. Tony, as a neurosurgeon, I can tell you the biggest predictor of how people will do, both in the short term and long term, is whether they can keep those pressure, what's called the intracranial pressure, the pressure inside the head, if they can keep those low, under control, he has a much better chance of survival. But we'll keep tabs on it as well, Tony...</s>HARRIS: Appreciate. Thank you, Sanjay. And you probably...</s>GUPTA: All right.</s>HARRIS: ...need to stick around to help us understand this next story. An Oregon man claims he's pregnant. What will the neighbors think?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is Thomas pregnant?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm just like, whoa.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can stick my stomach out,</s>HARRIS: Baby on board. It's a question, in the NEWSROOM. But first, your retirement nears. Your home's value slips away. What do you do when the nest egg cracks? Gerri Willis has advice coming up for you in the NEWSROOM.