Expert medical team use latest life-saving technique to bring patient back to life; doctors describe outcome as a ‘miracle’
2-MIN READ2-MINFran Luin BeijingPublished: 2:00pm, 28 Apr 2026A Chinese man has miraculously survived after his heart stopped beating for 40 hours, sparking an online discussion about the latest life-saving medical techniques.
The case came to light after emergency doctor Lu Xiao from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine posted it on his social media account, which has three million followers.
Lu said the 40-year-old man had a cardiac arrest and no heartbeat could be found after several electric defibrillations.
The medical team performed extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) on the man and eventually saved his life despite his heart having stopped beating for nearly two days.
ECMO is a life-support machine that acts as an artificial heart and lung, adding oxygen to and removing carbon dioxide from the blood supply of people whose organs have failed.
