Half-frozen woman lives to tell about it

Talk about it

A woman who almost froze to death in a snow bank in Waukesha said she was “gone” before doctors brought her back to life.

Tia Ross, 25, of Milwaukee had no pulse and almost no heartbeat when she arrived at Waukesha Memorial Hospital on Sunday.

Cardiologist Paul Seifert said Ross was technically dead, but a team led by Dr. Grant Moehring gave her 90 minutes of CPR and high-voltage defibrillation.

Eventually, she was hooked up to a device that pumped warm, fresh blood to a body that was 73 degrees at its coldest.

Ross said she went to a Waukesha tavern with a male friend to celebrate her birthday, but he stranded her when he went to check on his kids and he never returned.

At closing time, she left without a jacket and she tried to get back into the bar but couldn’t.

Ross said her memory was hazy but she remembered flagging people down, and no one would help.

Ross ended up at a used car lot about a mile away, where she tried to enter the office. She collapsed in a snow bank a short time later, where she spent six hours before a police officer finally found her.

Doctors could not say how long it would take for Ross to recover.

Tags: wisconsin news, waukesha, frozen, woman, tia, ross, revived