Christine 'Tink' Newman's medical miracle: Revived from near death

A 24-year-old Metro Vancouver womanis extremely lucky to be alive, after she was found nearlydead in the snow by strangers who administered CPR forhours.

Squamish Search and Rescue manager John Howe said Christine 'Tink' Newman's story ofincredible survivalisa rare casein whicha person's low body temperature enables them to berevived after their heart seemingly stops.

Newman, whose ordeal began early Tuesday morning, was still in intensive care at Vancouver General Hospital this weekend, which is where critical care physician Dr. Vinay Dhingra briefed reporters about her promising recovery so far.

"She is awake.She's alert. She's conscious. She is talking. She had a good lunch today. She is still weak and is able to get into a chair with assist ... not quite walking just yet," he said.

"Her only complaints right now are really about her fingers andher toes. She's got some numbness and some tingling in there that she kind of described as 'sparkly,' sort of a neuropathy that we're seeing right now."

A string of small miracles

"This whole event was a whole string of things that had to be perfect for this to actually happen," said her father, John Newman, on Sunday.

On Monday, Newman wentsnowshoeing in the Elfin Lakes area of Garibaldi Park, near Whistler,where she befriended groups of skiers and snowshoers anddecided to stay inthe overnight cabin.

She wasn't intending to stay the night, but the hike up had taken her longer than she thought it would and the more experienced adventurers at the shelter convinced her to stay.

At around 2 a.m. she went outside alone to use the outhouse.

She somehow got lost and disoriented, and wandered through trees and down a ridge, where she dropped her backpack along on a narrow trailandended up falling feet-first intoa tree well, about 10 or more metres off the trail.

• What is a tree well? Learn more

"The teams inside the hut ... what they didn't notice was her not coming back in," Newmansaid.

In the morning they assumed that she had set out early back toward to the parking lot. They started to continue their climb, Newman said.

'Something had gone wrong'

Three people on skis and three on snowshoes set off togetherand spread out a bit along the trail.

The skier in the front, who wasn't the usual leader of the group, went a bit further out ahead and spotted the woman'sdistinctive backpack lying in the snow.

"They recognized at that point that ... something had gone wrong," Newman said.

The six people began a search pattern, and soon found her, in a standing position, down a tree well that was about 1.3 to 1.5 metres deep.The only thing showing was the top of her head.

One of the members with the groupthought they heard a moanor a gasp.

"It would have been absolutely so easy for someone to completely miss that," Newman said.

By then, it was 9:30 a.m. She had been missing for more than seven hours.

It was difficult to pull her out in the deep snow, and it took the group a while to do it without collapsing the cone of snow and getting trapped themselves.

"These guys never gave up," he said.

'They didn't give up when they should have'

Her body was very cold. There were no vital signs. The group of six a Calgary RCMP officer and his wife, a retired paramedic, a carpenter, an officeworker and a German student got to work.

Three people rotated doing CPR. One of them took off his shirt to try and give her his body heat through skin contact. Two people took turns giving mouth-to-mouth air.

Among them, the retired paramedic kept it all together.

"His contribution, while not so much the physical, was really very interesting. He kept a rhythm. He kept the rescuers hydrated, warmand co-ordinated," Newman said.

"These people are heroes. They didn't give up when they should have."

The team couldn't get a pulse, but was spurred by occasional signs of life: a pupil contracting in the lightor a finger moving.

At one point, they had to get particularly creative.

"There's a pink froth that comes up near death ... they had to remove that to continue the CPR so they broke apart a CamelBak package and used the tube there to try and suction out some of the material," John Newmansaid.

And they were doing all this indeep snow.

Nowhere for a helicopter to land

Another group had been sent down the trail to get to an area with cell reception to call for help, but one of the women in the group of six had volunteered with rescue groups beforeand knew there was nowhere for the helicopter to land on thesoft snow.

So, in between turns doing CPR, they wouldput on their snowshoes and packdown the snow for a landing pad.

"These people never gave up hope. They kept on with the CPR in a tight rotation," he said.

Eric Urban, one of the six rescuers, said they didn't know they would have to continue giving CPR for so long, but they were the only hope Christine had.

"Once you commit to CPR, you have kind of have to stick with it. You have to keep going," he said.

After about two hours, a search and rescue team arrived on the ground, helped pack down a firmer landing pad and took overfor another two hoursbefore the rescuehelicopter had arrived.

A B.C. doctor who is aleadingexpert in hypothermia was in contact with search and rescue crews during that time.

Hemade preparations to receive her at Vancouver Generaland initiated special hypothermia recovery protocols when she arrived.

JohnWillcox, a member ofSquamishSearch and Rescue, said it's almost unbelievable how everything came together to save Newman.

"The stars were aligned, as far as these people being able to find the young lady,"Willcoxsaid.

"We're lucky to have the Vancouver hospitals so close that can do this kind of lifesaving treatment for severe hypothermia," he said.

Her father said everyone involved has put in such an amazing outpouring of effort and care, especially the group of six skiiers and snowshoers.

"You know, just finishing watching the Olympics last month ... if I had six gold medals to give out, these would be the people who deserve six gold medals," he said.

"They ran the marathon and they won, and the result is that a 24-year-old girl named Christine Newman is going to be alive and walking and living a very vibrant life," he said.

"She's been given another chance."