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'Low temperatures are very protective' Cold weather may have helped Thomas' prognosis
Posted: Saturday January 29, 2000 01:13 PM
MIAMI (AP) -- Freezing temperatures on the day of Derrick Thomas's car accident may have helped reduce inflammation to his severely bruised spinal cord, doctors say. The 33-year-old Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, who remains paralyzed from the chest down at Jackson Memorial Hospital, was thrown from his car last Sunday after losing control on an icy highway near Kansas City, Mo. The cold weather may have helped prevent further damage to Thomas's spinal cord, doctors at the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis said Friday. Inflammation has been proven to cause as much damage -- if not more -- than the initial trauma of an injury to the spinal cord. "We have now discovered in the lab that 1 or 2 degrees difference in spinal cord temperature when you're injured and several days after the injury is critical in determining outcome," said Dalton Dietrich, neurosurgeon and scientific director at the Miami Project. "Temperature affects many biological processes," he added. "If you cool a person, the temperature slows down all these bad pathways and that's better than any drug." Neurosurgeon Barth Green, one of the leading spinal cord injury specialists in the country, said he was not sure how long Thomas was in the freezing temperatures before paramedics arrived. "Low temperatures are very protective, there's no doubt about it," Green said. Both doctors agreed that the process -- called modest hypothermia -- is one of the most popular research studies in the world right now. Thomas, who broke his spine and neck, could be moved into a rehabilitation center as early as Monday, Green said. He was transferred out of intensive care Thursday and already has begun working with therapists.
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