Docs to Test Suspended Animation

The technique popularly known as suspended animation will be tested at the UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh later this month on 10 patients with knife or gunshot wounds, the hospital announced Wednesday. The patients will be rendered neither dead nor alive, and their bodies blood will be replaced with a cold saline solution that virtually halts cellular activity. The idea is that if a patient is dying, and you suspend them, you can bring them back to life after repairing life-threatening injuries. Just don't call it suspended animation while talking to a doctor. "We are suspending life, but we don't like to call it suspended animation because it sounds like science fiction. So we call it emergency preservation and resuscitation,” said Samuel Tisherman, the surgeon heading the trial.