LOS ANGELES -- (The New York Times News Service) -- Maria Ramos started dying on her own front porch.

After a week of fatigue, vomiting and shortness of breath, the 39-year-old from Reseda decided to go to the doctor.

But on her way out the door, she slumped to the pavement in a faint.

EMTs rushed her to Providence Tarzana Medical Center, where she went into cardiac arrest in the waiting room.

Ramos said doctors shocked her unresponsive heart 24 times.

"Even TV doesn't shock anyone 24 times," Ramos said. "If you get shocked 24 times and nothing's happened, you won't survive."

"I was dead."

Ramos next underwent emergency double-bypass surgery and her heart started beating again.

Then, doctors did something unorthodox.

They refrigerated her.

"Just like in old science fiction, the idea is to put them in stasis," said Dr. Sean Henderson, who works in the emergency department of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center and teaches at USC's Keck School of Medicine. "Everything slows down when it's cold."

During the relatively new treatment, called therapeutic hypothermia, doctors drop the patient's body temperature to 33 degrees Celsius (about 91 Fahrenheit or 7 degrees below average human body temperature) for 12 to 24 hours.

The procedure helps prevent brain damage after blood flow halts, which also stops oxygen from reaching the organs, said Dr. G.

Samuel Brewster, medical director of Tarzana's emergency department.

"We're basically saying, 'I can't fix whatever damage has happened already," Henderson said. "But we can say, 'Swelling and reactions -- relax. No more damage until the body has had a chance to recover."'

Ramos was only the third patient to go through the treatment at Tarzana after the hospital introduced a standardized protocol two weeks ago.

County-USC, Harbor-UCLA and Olive View medical centers have all used the procedure for more than a year, but all three are academic hospitals: The procedure is less common in private practices, Henderson said. Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys also is among the hospitals that perform the procedure.

After Ramos went through open-heart surgery, doctors placed her in a machine that wrapped her body in pouches of cold saline for 24 hours.

"Just like the fly in the freezer, everything in your body moves slower when it's cold," Henderson said. "Cells die slower and harmful cell tissues are released slower. This way, we limit the damage that occurs."

Ramos is still in the hospital but said she felt fine almost immediately after the July 16 surgery, with no apparent memory or nervous problems.

"Those two days were so dislocated," Ramos said. "I heard voices, and I had a couple of images, but it was really like I woke up from a long nap."

Brewster said the procedure has had a 100 percent success rate so far at Providence Tarzana.

He said all three hypothermia therapy patients have completely recovered.

Because patients are unconscious, they can't choose to have the procedure done, which Brewster said could be perceived as a downside.

"These are patients who are unconscious, who are obviously not responding, and their heart has just stopped," Brewster said.

"Like anything, as the treating physicians, we will institute really what we feel is best to give the patient the best survival."

Henderson, though, said that Ramos is lucky: Most patients do not even meet the qualifications for the procedure, let alone emerge fine.

"The doctors keep telling me that it's a miracle," Ramos said.

"To survive cardiac arrest, to be basically dead, and then have no brain damage. They say that almost never happens."

Henderson was quick to point out patients must survive cardiac arrest before the treatment can be considered.

That means fewer than 25 percent of those who make it to a hospital could even be considered for therapeutic hypothermia.

And if patients survive cardiac arrest, they cannot be in shock or have serious breathing problems, Henderson said.

"Survival from cardiac arrest is dismal," Henderson said.

"What people have to remember is that this procedure is for a select group of people, and it's not available many places."

Northridge Hospital Medical Center, Simi Valley Adventist, Glendale Adventist, Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills Medical Center do not use the treatment, representatives said.

"It's expensive to buy the equipment, and it's intensive in terms of participation," Henderson said. "Many hospitals avoid this because it is not the magic bullet."

Norma O'Flaherty, director of public relations at Valley Presbyterian, said the hospital uses the procedure as a part of emergency room surgery.

"We're always trying to do something new," O'Flaherty said.

"There are studies on it that look good."

Jennifer Bayer, director of public affairs for the Hospital Association of Southern California, said individual hospitals choose whether to use the procedure.

Brewster said the cooling process has been widely used in New York, but not in Los Angeles, where he said emergency services are good enough for other attempts to sometimes work.

Brewster said New York's techniques could influence Los Angeles practices.

For example, EMTs may perform cooling techniques while still in the field, Brewster said.

"Nationally, studies are coming out looking at the pre-hospital arena for similar patients, Brewster said."

Two days before Ramos' heart attack, an ambulance raced 63-year-old Rosa Barajas to the Tarzana ER in cardiac arrest.

Doctors cooled her down, too.

Barajas collapsed in her Reseda kitchen while talking with her oldest daughter, Lourdes Soto, visiting from Ohio.

"My mom just collapsed without any warning," Soto said. "We thought she'd had a heart attack because she started turning purple."

Barajas said she was unconscious during the entire treatment.

"I don't remember a thing until I woke up and I didn't know where I was," she said in an interview translated from Spanish.

"I thought I might be in heaven until I recognized my family and thanked God because I knew all of us couldn't have died.

"What the doctors did saved my life. It was an absolute miracle."

Copyright 2009 The New York Times News Service. All rights reserved.