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Extreme sunburn victim ‘died for 25 minutes’ during surgery

Pennlive.Com
| Monday, August 5, 2024 12:31 p.m.
Metro Creative

A 20-year-old U.K. university student “died for 25 minutes” in a hospital in the U.S. after getting “extreme sunburn” during his time at summer camp.

Charlie Vincent, of Northamptonshire, suffered cardiac arrest during surgery. He was then placed into an induced coma for a week as doctors believed he would need heart and kidney transplants to survive, both the BBC and Real Life reported.

Fortunately, he survived the harrowing ordeal.

This all transpired after Vincent, a film student from Irthlingborough who was going into his third year at De Montfort University in Leicester, flew to New Hampshire in the U.S. in June to teach six-year-old children how to canoe at a summer camp.

That first day, Vincent ended up being badly sunburnt and suffered from second-degree burns on his legs. He was transported to a hospital by camp leaders, where doctors quickly noticed that he had patches of pneumonia sitting on his lungs.

He then underwent an operation for the respiratory infection but during surgery, he suffered a shock cardiac arrest and a mini stroke.

His family said his heart stopped for 25 minutes before restarting.

According to Vincent’s older sister, 24-year-old Emily Vincent, doctors discovered that her brother had an enlarged heart, also known as cardiomegaly, which means it has to work harder than normal.

Vincent spent a week in an induced coma as doctors initially thought he’d need an urgent organ transplant for his heart and both kidneys. But thanks to a “miracle” recovery — as Emily Vincent described the whole ordeal — this might not be needed any longer.

“At one point, I just couldn’t see a way that Charlie was going to make it, it was absolutely heartbreaking, it was hell,” she told Real Life.

“It’s definitely a miracle that he’s still here,” she added.

There’s a chance Charlie Vincent would still need a heart transplant but that would be at a later time, BBC reported.

The 20-year-old and his parents were scheduled to fly back to the United Kingdom on Thursday on a medical flight to continue his recovery closer to home at Northampton General Hospital.

Currently, they’re waiting to hear if his insurance, which covers up to $500,000, will handle his U.S. medical bill.

“I think the hospital he has been in has given him the most amazing care, and without that I don’t think he would have made it,” Emily Vincent concluded.

In the meantime, the family has set up a GoFundMe page to help with the cost of his treatment and travel costs for his parents.

As of now, the page has raised £13,987 ($17,842.73 in U.S. dollars) of its £20,000 goal.


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