Decades Ago, A Woman Survived Being 'Frozen Solid'. Here's The Science

In Minnesota, early on New Year's Eve in 1980, a guy by the name of Wally Nelson found his friend's body lying in the snow not far from his door.

Jean Hilliard, a 19-year-old, was driving home from a night out when her car stopped. She ventured out into the - 30 Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit) night air wearing nothing more than a winter coat, mittens, and cowboy boots in order to ask her buddy for help.

She fell at some time and went unconscious. According to various sources, Hilliard's body was left "frozen solid" after six hours of being exposed to the cold.

Years later, Nelson would recall the incident in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, saying, "I grabbed her by the collar and dragged her onto the porch."

"I assumed she was deceased. I noticed some bubbles coming out of her nostrils even though she was as hard as a board."

Nelson's quick action saved Hilliard from joining the hundreds of deaths attributed to hypothermia each year. Instead, her story has contributed to medical folklore and sparked scholarly interest.

How might a body endure being completely frozen?

Stories of humans surviving below-freezing temperatures are both remarkable and common enough to make headlines. In fact, doctors in chilly regions have a proverb that goes, "Nobody is dead until warm and dead."

The idea that severe hypothermia doesn't inevitably spell the end of life is now the cornerstone of treatment. Lowering body temperature under regulated circumstances can slow down metabolism and lessen the body's unquenchable appetite for oxygen.

A frozen body can temporarily stop the entire death process in medical settings and in rare occasions elsewhere, allowing time to cope with a low pulse.

The extremeness of Hilliard's hypothermia is what makes her story stand out.

Forget that she had a body temperature that was 10 degrees lower than that of a healthy person, at a mere 27 degrees Celsius. She appeared to be frozen. Her skin was allegedly too tough to be pierced by a hypodermic needle, and her face and eyes were ashen.

The doctor who treated her, George Sather, described her body as being "cold, fully solid, much like a piece of flesh out of a deep freeze."

Hilliard's body, however, quickly recovered to health after being warmed by heating pads in a matter of hours. By midday, she was speaking, and other than a few numb, burned toes, she was quickly released to resume her routine life, undisturbed by her previous night spent as a human popsicle.

It was all credited to the effectiveness of prayer, according to her community's friends and relatives. But what is the position of biology in this case?

Contrary to many other substances, water occupies more space as a solid than as a liquid. For bodily tissues that are exposed to the cold, this expansion is terrible news since their liquid contents might potentially grow to the point of rupturing their containers.

Frostbite, which is characterized by blackened areas of dead skin and muscle, can result from even a small number of wayward ice crystals blossoming in the incorrect location. This can puncture cell membranes.

In order to deal with the risks posed by sharp, growing ice crystals in sub-freezing environments, some animals have evolved some ingenious adaptations. Glycoproteins, a sort of organic antifreeze, are produced by deep-sea fish like Antarctic blackfin icefish.

By saturating its body with glucose, the wood frog transforms the contents of its cells into a syrup and is able to withstand freezing and dehydration. Water is free to solidify outside of cells, encasing tissues in ice and giving them the appearance that they are as solid as ice cubes in the form of frogs.

It's difficult to determine for sure how Hilliard's body fared being frozen without any other information beyond what was observed from the outside. Was her body chemistry special in any way? even the composition of her tissues?

Maybe. What what "frozen" implies in this context is a far more crucial topic. Hilliard's body temperature was apparently still far above freezing despite being low. A literal solidified vein of water and a metaphorical "chilled to the bone" are two completely different things.

As muscular stiffness rises to such a degree as to mimic rigor mortis, the stiffening that occurs to a dead corpse, it is a frequent symptom of severe hypothermia that Hilliard's body felt solid.

It may not come as much of a surprise that she had a frigid, white surface to her body, and even that her eyes had a glassy, "solid" appearance. To keep organs working, the body will block the pathways to the blood arteries under the skin, resulting in a body that appears ashen and feels astonishingly chilly to the touch.

We may even picture a bent needle or two for medical professionals persistent enough to try their luck with a thinner gauged hypodermic on severely restricted veins, especially if they're coated by thin layers of desiccated skin pulled tight against hard muscles.

We can only assume as there isn't much information available outside a few startled stories as to whether Hilliard's "frozen" body was usual, surprising, or perhaps oddly unique in its capacity to sustain such a drastic shift in condition. But there's no denying that she was fortunate.

In the future, we could rely less on luck and more on medical advancements and quick actions to preserve lives like hers as we learn more about the remarkable things the human body is capable of.