the girl who survived an UNSURVIVABLE disease

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: rabies, Wild, Gina Gizy, asthma theory
2. 5:00 – 10:00: rabies, postexposure prophylaxis, Center for Disease Control, rabies like virus
3. 10:00 – 15:00: rabies, hydrophobia
4. 15:00 – 20:00: rabies, Gina Gizy, rabies vaccine, postexposure prophylaxis
5. 20:00 – 25:00: rabies, Dr. Rodney Willoughby, therapeutic coma, Center for Disease Control
6. 25:00 – 30:00: rabies, Milwaukee Protocol, Dr. Rodney Willoughby, Guardian
7. 30:00 – 32:57: rabies, preexposure vaccine, Wild

Notable quotes from "the girl who survived an UNSURVIVABLE disease"

• And this one is a truly fascinating story about rabies. Now, if there's one thing to know about rabies, it's that you don't survive it. For so much of history, if you start showing symptoms of rabies, you are dead. That is it. So.

  about rabies · at 0:12

• According to the Center for Disease Control, each year 1.4 million Americans receive health care for possible rabies exposures. 100,000 people receive post-exposure prophylaxis and fewer than.

  about Center for Disease Control · at 6:14

• Are so intelligent. It's wild to me. So, because of this, because of the muscle spasms that the virus causes, people with rabies will often act as if they're afraid of water.…

  about hydrophobia · at 13:38

• Department immediately for a risk assessment where they'll determine your eligibility for postexposure prophylaxis which will save your life. This involves a very thorough…

  about postexposure prophylaxis · at 15:08

• Good. You're fine. You're not going to get rabies. Channel favorite Louis Pure developed the rabies vaccine back in 1885 alongside Emil Rue with the virus being harvested from infected rabbits.

  about rabies vaccine · at 16:09

• Fight or to die fighting. And maybe there was that tiny chance that something might work. He scoured the internet looking for anything that could help. And when he went to…

  about Dr. Rodney Willoughby · at 22:58

• Survived the next day. So, they just they gave it a shot. On October 11th, 2004, doctors decided to put Gina in a medically induced coma, during which she was given a mixture…

  about therapeutic coma · at 24:09

• Just simply doesn't work. The article reads, and I quote, Therapy suggested in the Milwaukee Protocol includes therapeutic coma, ketamine infusion, amantadine, and the…

  about Milwaukee Protocol · at 27:58

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Gina Gizy — Person · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 0:27
  First documented person to survive symptomatic rabies without a vaccine.
  Fatality rate if you don't immediately get the prophylactic vaccine after you've been exposed. But Gina was able to survive without the vaccine through incredible, fascinating…
• Dr. Rodney Willoughby — Person · Referenced expert · 6 mentions · first at 22:12
  Developed the Milwaukee Protocol, which was used to treat Gina Gizy.
• Louis Pasteur — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention
  Developed the first rabies vaccine in 1885.
• Emil Roux — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention
  Collaborated with Louis Pasteur on the rabies vaccine.
• Democritus — Person · Referenced historical figure · 1 mention
  First known to describe canine rabies around 500 BCE.

Books & papers

• New England Journal of Medicine — Book · Referenced publication · 1 mention · first at 29:13
  Published a report on the Milwaukee Protocol.
  Guaranteed to work. Dr. Willoughby himself never had a big ego about this Milwaukee protocol. In a report in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005, he speculated that…

Companies & orgs

• Center for Disease Control — Company · Referenced organization · 2 mentions · first at 6:14
  Provides guidelines and statistics on rabies prevention.

Products & tech

• rabies vaccine — Product · Core topic · 1 mention · first at 16:13
  Discussed as the primary prevention method for rabies.

Concepts & topics

• rabies — Concept · Core topic · 47 mentions · first at 0:15
  Rabies is a central focus of the episode, discussing its fatal nature and historical context.
• Milwaukee Protocol — Concept · Core topic · 4 mentions · first at 27:38
  Experimental treatment used to save Gina Gizy from rabies.
• postexposure prophylaxis — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 6:21
  Critical treatment to prevent rabies after exposure.
• therapeutic coma — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 24:14
  Part of the Milwaukee Protocol used to treat Gina Gizy.
• hydrophobia — Concept · Referenced concept · 3 mentions · first at 12:10
  A symptom of rabies causing fear of water.
• preexposure vaccine — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 30:10
  Discussed as a preventive measure against rabies.
  Is a terrifying disease and please don't wait until you get bitten to get the vaccine. Get it first. The preexposure vaccine makes the postexposure vaccine so much more…
• rabies like virus — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 5:49
  Describes viruses similar to rabies, such as EBLV2.
  Animals. They fly. In 2002, a licensed batander died after being bitten and infected with EBLV2, which is called a rabies like virus.
• asthma theory — Concept · Referenced concept · 1 mention · first at 1:26
  Mentioned humorously in the context of historical medical beliefs.
  Was filming this video like 200 years ago, this would have been so easy to integrate in like my asthma theory and all that, I could be Are you scared of the bad air, the toxic…

Places & events

• Fond du Lac — Place · Contextual location · 1 mention
  Gina Gizy's hometown and initial location of her treatment.
  Bed. She had double vision and uncontrollable vomiting. Soon she became entirely unresponsive. Gina's parents took her to St. Agnes Hospital in Fonjilac where a doctor referred her to a neurologist who sent her for CT scan.

Media & podcasts

• Guardian — Media · Referenced media · 3 mentions · first at 22:01
  Published an article by Gina Gizy about her rabies survival story.
  Were told that this was a guaranteed death sentence. No one had ever survived rabies without a vaccine. According to an article written by Gina in the Guardian, her parents…

Sponsors

• Wild — Company · Sponsor · 3 mentions · first at 1:11
  Sponsor of the episode, promoting sustainable bathroom products.
  Story of hope of survival of a terrible unservivable disease. But first, I want to say a huge thank you to Wild for partnering with me for today's video.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 That's right. It is time for another video all about medical history. These are some of my absolute favorite stories to research and to share. I love a medical mystery, a medical deep dive. And this one is a truly fascinating story about rabies. Now, if there's one thing to know about rabies, it's that you don't survive it. For so much of history, if you start showing symptoms of rabies, you are dead. That is it. So today I want to tell you about Gina Gizy, the woman, the first woman ever documented to survive symptomatic rabies in 2004.

0:36 Rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear. It has a near 100% fatality rate if you don't immediately get the prophylactic vaccine after you've been exposed. But Gina was able to survive without the vaccine through incredible, fascinating medical advancements. I remember watching a documentary about her story years ago. It must have been at least a decade ago and it's always stuck with me and now I want to share that with you. This is a story of hope of survival of a terrible unservivable disease. But first, I want to say a huge thank you to Wild for partnering with me for today's video.

1:15 These videos wouldn't be possible without the support of brands like Wild. And you know what I was thinking? If I was filming this video like 200 years ago, this would have been so easy to integrate in like my asthma theory and all that, I could be like, "Are you scared of the bad air, the toxic vapors of everyday life causing disease? Well, don't you worry. Wild has got you covered. They'll keep you healthy and smelling fresh all day. It would have been so good." But sadly, we don't believe in mythma theory anymore. Wild are a brand who want to shake up the throwaway culture of everyday bathroom products with refillable products that actually work. Each combustible refill of these deodorants saves 30 g of plastic with the reusable cases being made from aluminium with no single-use plastic in sight. Wild is good for the planet and good for your skin as well.

2:07 Unlike other deodorants, Wild has natural ingredients. There's no chemicals, no aluminium salts or parabens. It's vegan, it's cruelty-free, and it's great on all skin types. And if you are particularly sensitive, there are also sensitive versions available of their formulas as well, which is amazing because my wife, she is very sensitive. Wild offer a subscription service with deodorant refills being dropped through your letter box. It's entirely flexible. You can try and change new scents anytime, which I love doing myself. And they also now offer a roll-on option as well as the stick. So cool. I have the new special edition Kathken marble ditzy case along with the wildflower bloom refill. That sense of wildflower, jasmine, and tuber rose. Tub rose. I'm realizing right now I've never said that word loud before. Tuber rose maybe. Who knows? These beautiful cases are limited edition though. So if you do want this

3:02 case right now to be sat on your makeup desk forever more, you can sign up right now using my code George Marie 20 for 20% off your order. or you can use a QR code that's on the screen somewhere right now. Let me know in the comments what scent you decide to go for. I love wild. And with that, let's get back to rabies. So, to fully understand how incredible Gina's story is, first you need to understand how rabies works. Now, disclaimer here. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a disease expert. I'm just a massive nerd. But this is a fascinating disease and also it is wildly deadly. is estimated to cause at least 59,000 human deaths every year in over 150 countries with 95% of those cases occurring in Africa and Asia. Although actually apparently the estimate of 59,000 deaths is thought to be a gross underestimate thanks to a lack of reporting. The burden of this disease of rabies is disproportionately born by

4:02 rural poor populations and 40% of cases are attributed to children under the age of 15 and that kind of naturally means it is going to be reported less. Many people who die from rabies never even see a medical professional due to a lack of access or lack of funds. And if you're not seeing professionals, it's probably not being properly reported. Coming from the west or at least coming from where I am in the UK, it's very easy to think of rabies as being a very rare disease. But that is simply not the reality for so many people worldwide.

4:36 People who have no access to the prophylactic vaccine, which we will be talking about in detail in just a bit, don't you worry. But just a bit of an FYI though for my UK and US viewers, seeing as that is where most of my viewers are from. In the UK, rabies is classed as extremely rare. The last case of classical rabies acquired here in this country was documented in 1902, so a long time ago. Rabies is classed as a viral zunotic disease. It's an infectious disease caused by a virus spread between animals and humans. And classical rabies refers to a disease acquired through a bite or a scratch from a terrestrial, so a land swelling animal. So that hasn't happened in the UK since 1902. That's not to say there hasn't been any rabies in the UK since then. There has been 26 cases to be exact. But all of them have been imported from abroad. So people go on holiday, get bitten by animals. It has

5:30 an incubation period of a number of days to a number of weeks. They come back to the UK and start showing symptoms. So there have been cases in the UK, but they haven't been acquired here. There have also been a couple of cases caused by bats, which are non-aterrestrial animals. They fly. In 2002, a licensed batander died after being bitten and infected with EBLV2, which is called a rabies like virus. It's not rabies itself. It's just rabies like the man did sadly die and we are all warned here in the UK to never ever handle bats. But yeah, apparently that wasn't actually classed as a case of rabies. It was just rabies like in the USA. I was surprised to learn rabies does remain a serious but rare threat.

6:14 According to the Center for Disease Control, each year 1.4 million Americans receive health care for possible rabies exposures. 100,000 people receive post-exposure prophylaxis and fewer than 10 people every year die from rabies. And these people are the ones who don't seek medical help soon enough. Again, once you start showing symptoms of rabies, it is too late. In the USA, rabies is still considered to be relatively uncommon in humans. Luckily, thanks to very robust prevention efforts. But I did find it crazy to read that three out of four Americans live in a community where raccoons, skunks, or foxes carry rabies. It used to be dogs who are the biggest threat, but now it's wildlife in the USA at least. To my American viewers, you can let me know the answer to this or your thoughts on this in the comments. But are there pretty big public safety campaigns that go on warning people about the dangers

7:08 of animal bites? Are there campaigns urging you to seek medical help immediately if you've been bitten by an animal? Because for so many animals to have the virus, but there to be so few deaths is honestly really impressive. And here in the UK, like we all know not to handle bats, but I don't feel like rabies are something in the forefront of our minds. Maybe it should be, but it's not really. There's not really any big campaigns around it. But is that a thing in the USA considering there are so many animals with rabies? Let me know. I don't know. There are some warning signs to be aware of in a rabid animal, but you can't definitively tell if an animal has rabies by behavior alone. It is always best to seek medical help with any animal bite just in case. Just always on the side of caution. However, some signs of rabies in mammals can include severe behavioral changes. So, friendly animals might suddenly become

7:56 very cautious. Shy animals might become very bold. There might be unprovoked aggression or unusual friendliness. Other signs could include a hyper sensitivity to noise or light, a very blank staring expression, thirst, weak muscles, drooping eyelids, difficulty swallowing, and much more saliva being produced than normal. This leads to the very classic rabies picture of an animal frothing at the mouth. Remember, these are the signs of animals. We're not on to talking about humans yet. This is animals alone. There are a lot of different potential animal symptoms, and there's also the potential that an animal will show no signs of rabies whatsoever. The only way to know for sure if an animal has rabies is through lab tests. And for that to happen, the animal has to be dead. It's not really possible to test for rabies on a live animal because the test must include a full cross-section of tissue from both

8:50 the brain stem and the cerebellum. This entire disease is really rough beginning to end. No matter who's infected, animal or human, it is horrible. But how do humans get rabies? How do they get it from animals? Like I said, this is a zunotic disease. It spread from animal to human. There's not much evidence that it can be spread from human to human. I suppose it could be if a human is biting other people, but again, that doesn't really happen the way that it does with animals. Um, yeah, human to human doesn't really happen. is always from or pretty much always from animal to human.

9:22 As you might guess, it's transmitted through the saliva of an infected animal. Most often through a bite, it can also be caught through a scratch or just through saliva getting into an open wound or through mucous membranes. So, the eyes, the nose, or the mouth. I don't know how animal saliva would potentially get into the eyes or the nose or the mouth, but it can happen. If you got a dog, you're letting it lick your face and you don't know it's got rabies, you could get it that way. Almost all human cases worldwide of rabies come from dogs. But as we've already covered, other animals can carry it, too. And it's always better to be safe than sorry. If you get bitten by an animal, especially in a country with known rabies, get it checked out.

10:04 Because if you get rabies treated before symptoms start showing, you can survive. You will survive. If you wait for the first symptom, you're not going to survive. That is it. I keep saying this. I keep saying that you can't survive rabies, but also if you get it treated fast enough, you will survive. How does that work? Well, after a rabies exposure, so you've been bitten or you've been scratched, the virus must travel to the brain before it can cause any symptoms. And the incubation period of this can vary from weeks to months.

10:33 Generally, it's between 1 and 3 months, but it can range from just a few days to several years. This is why it's so important you get postexposure treatment as soon as possible because you don't know how long you've got and the quicker the treatment, the more effective it's going to be. The incubation period can vary for many different reasons. The location of the exposure site is a big one. So the closer to the brain that the bite is, the quicker it will be. If you get bitten on your neck, you're going to start showing symptoms quicker than if you were bitten on your ankle. Patient age is another big one. Younger children seem to have much shorter incubation periods. Again, there's probably less far for the virus to travel. There's the severity of exposure and importantly, your rabies vaccination status. That is a very big one. The first symptoms of rabies in humans might just feel like

11:22 the flu. Weakness, discomfort, fever, headaches. You might also get a bit of itching at the original bite site. And these symptoms will last for several days. They're not obvious ra symptoms. You could just very easily brush them off as being a bit under the weather, but by this point it's already too late. There's already nothing you can do. The severe disease will appear within maybe a few days, a couple of weeks of this. And this is when the rabies virus begins to do what it does best. It causes severe brain dysfunction with progressive and fatal inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, meningo and sephilitis. We're talking things like anxiety insomnia confusion agitation delirium hallucination seizures and the two symptoms that people most often associate with rabies. Hydrophobia, so a fear of water, and hyper salivation.

12:16 Just imagine this. You start to get symptoms of something you think versus just a cold. And then within a couple of weeks, you're hallucinating, you are delirious, you can't drink water, you are salivating. It is a terrible, terrible disease. It is so scary. The reason behind the hydrophobia that is so commonly associated with rabies is actually really fascinating. Rabies is a crazy intelligent virus and it specifically affects the part of the brain that controls swallowing and breathing amongst other things. This virus literally alters the saliva production process, meaning that you produce more and it causes painful muscle spasms that discourage swallowing. But why does it do that?

13:01 Because of course, it thrives in saliva. By swallowing your saliva, you are essentially reducing the spread of the virus and that is the opposite of what they want to do. So, the virus acts in a way that a makes you produce more and b makes you spread the saliva on your surroundings rather than swallowing it. It's all about survival for this tiny little terrifying virus. Thinking about it in that way makes it seem really sentient, doesn't it? Like this virus is doing everything it can to survive. It knows exactly what part of the brain it needs to attack to make sure that it can survive and it can thrive. It's viruses are so intelligent. It's wild to me. So, because of this, because of the muscle spasms that the virus causes, people with rabies will often act as if they're afraid of water. They're unable to swallow it. But really, it's the fear of swallowing anything. You can't swallow food or water or soda or orange juice.

13:56 You can't swallow anything. Interestingly, whilst animals also can develop hydrophobia, it's pretty rare in animals, it seems to be a much more prevalent symptom in humans. I found all of this so fascinating to find out. I literally stopped my wife like mid work to share this because although this is a terrifying virus, it's so smart. Like that is just the survival of it is crazy. It's so intelligent. Anyway, clinically there are two forms of rabies. You have furious rabies and paralytic rabies. Furious is most common. It accounts for around 80% of all cases. And it's characterized by erratic or aggressive behavior, muscle spasms, the throing at the mouth. This is the form of rabies that most people think of when they think of rabies.

14:40 Paralytic rabies is the remaining 20% of cases. And people with this type slowly become very paralyzed. It begins with a loss of sensation and muscle weakness around the infection site. And eventually these people just fall into a coma before dying. But good news, as I've already mentioned many times, if you seek treatment fast enough after an animal bite, you can avoid all of this. If you believe you've been exposed to rabies, make sure you contact medical professionals or your nearest health department immediately for a risk assessment where they'll determine your eligibility for postexposure prophylaxis which will save your life. This involves a very thorough wound washing and then the human rabies immunoglobbulin is administered at the site of the bite and this provides some immediate antibodies, a sort of passive temporary vaccine designed to provide immediate protection until the body can produce its own

15:33 antibodies in response to the actual vaccine which comes next. If you've never been vaccinated against rabies before, which you should be if you live in a country with rabies, get vaccinated. You need to have four vaccine doses over the course of two weeks. If you have had the vaccine before, you only need two doses on day zero and three. As long as you seek out medical help quickly and you're not showing any actual symptoms of rabies, this is all going to be enough to ensure that you're protected. After you've completed the entire course of vaccine, they'll test you for the rabies antibbody and with any luck, you're all good. You're fine. You're not going to get rabies. Channel favorite Louis Pure developed the rabies vaccine back in 1885 alongside Emil Rue with the virus being harvested from infected rabbits.

16:21 The virus in the nerve tissue of these rabbits was allowed to dry for 5 to 10 days which allowed it to weaken enough to use in vaccines. Essentially, it could be injected into the body and the body would recognize this as the rabies vaccine and would fight it accordingly and then recognize it again in future to know how to fight it. but it wasn't strong enough to actually infect you if the body didn't fight it. If that makes sense. That is kind of the basis of how all most a lot of vaccines tend to work. Very similar vaccines to this original one from 1885. These nerve tissue derived vaccines are still used in some countries today because they're so much cheaper than the modern cell culture vaccines and they still work. After Louis Pure formed his vaccine in July 1885, a local boy was mowled by a rabid dog and he was quickly rushed to Pure.

17:07 Now, he was very hesitant to treat him at first because even though he'd been working on this vaccine for a while, he didn't know if it was going to work. But after consulting with medical doctors who convinced him that either way, this boy was a dead man walking, he agreed and gave him 13 inoculations in 11 days. And this boy never formed a single symptom of rabies. He survived. Over the next 9 years before Pur's death, over 20,000 people were given this postexposure prophylactic vaccine and it worked. We love vaccines over here. Big vaccine fan. Vaccines work. Also, vaccinate your pets too, especially against rabies. I beg you. But if you get bitten by an animal with rabies and you don't get treated, if you don't get that vaccine, you are in trouble. You are most likely going to die. There is some evidence to suggest that even if you get the vaccine too late after exposure, it might actually speed up the

18:01 disease. It might increase the severity of the symptoms. So, it is so important that you get treated as soon as possible, like as soon as you get bitten. If you leave it too long, even if you do get the vaccine, still might be too late. It might make things worse. If you get bitten, you go to the hospital. Even if you don't think the animal was showing any symptoms of rabies, doesn't matter. Please get checked. But in 2004, something miraculous happened. Gina Gizy, a teenager from Fondelac, Wisconsin, got the symptoms of rabies and she survived.

18:33 She was 15 years old when one Sunday morning she was attending a church service with her mom. A bat was flying around inside the church and somebody swatted this bat down. But Gina was an animal lover. She asked her mom if she could pick up the bat and take it outside to keep it safe. So she did just that. she picked up with her bare hands and took it outside, going to place the bat in a tree. And as she did so, it stretched its neck. Do bats have necks? I assume so. It stretched over and it bit her on the left index finger. Gina would later say that the initial bite did hurt a lot. She had to pull the bat's fang out of her skin, but once she did so, she could barely see a wound. It was as small as a pimp prick, but apparently it did bleed quite a lot. It was very painful. She went back in the church, told her mom what had happened, and they cleaned her finger with a bit of hydrogen peroxide before just going

19:23 on with their lives. Now, this was an interesting story, though. So, over the next few days, they told a few people what had happened, that Gina had been bitten by a bat. But not a single person mentioned the risk of rabies or told her to go to the hospital to get checked out. Nobody thought anything of it. Not going to lie, this does seem a bit wild to me because even here in the UK with no rabies, I would still urge anyone bitten by a wild animal, especially by a bat, to go and get checked out. But this was 21 years ago now, so maybe public awareness of rabies was less 21 years ago. Maybe the public health campaigns hadn't really kicked in by this point. I don't really know, but nobody mentioned that there was any risk here. And due to the nature of the rabies virus, nothing happened straight away. Gina was fine.

20:06 It wasn't until 3 weeks later that she started to suffer any symptoms. The first of which was her feeling, in her own words, unbelievably tired. Within a few days of that first symptom starting, she found herself unable to get out of bed. She had double vision and uncontrollable vomiting. Soon she became entirely unresponsive. Gina's parents took her to St. Agnes Hospital in Fonjilac where a doctor referred her to a neurologist who sent her for CT scan. They were looking for things like menitis or Lyme disease amongst other things. But every single test they did came back as negative and doctors were stumped. This is what made me think that perhaps public awareness around rabies was massive around this time because even here in the UK, I feel like asking about animal bites is pretty standard procedure. I don't know. Americans confirm or deny. Like I just feel like asking about an animal bite would be a

20:59 very simple question to ask. Be one of the first things that you asked. But anyway, after the negative results, doctors incredibly just sent Gina home. But two days later on the Saturday, her parents rushed her back in when her symptoms just continued to get worse. They did more scans to no avail, but this time decided to keep her in for more monitoring. Thank God. It was on that Monday that Gina's mom happened to finally mention the bat bite to a pediatrician. And apparently, as soon as they mentioned it, the doctor's face just went white. rabies made sense with all her symptoms and nobody survives rabies. Gina was rushed to a specialist children's hospital in Wisconsin where they immediately took samples of her skin and spinal fluid and sent it to the Center for Disease Control in Georgia for testing. And the very next day, the diagnosis was confirmed and her parents were told that this was a guaranteed

21:53 death sentence. No one had ever survived rabies without a vaccine. According to an article written by Gina in the Guardian, her parents were told that they could either take her home to die or leave her in the hospital to die. Survival wasn't an option that they were given. She wasn't going to survive. But luckily, the pediatrician on shift that day was Dr. Rodney Willoughby. He was brand new at Children's Hospital. This was his second ever shift, and he just so happened to specialize in infectious diseases. He said to Fox 11 News that he thought Gina was going to die because everyone with symptotomatic rabies died.

22:29 That's about the extent of my knowledge of rabies at this time. That there wasn't much to do. It really is 100% fatal. By this point, they were obviously way too late to administer the vaccine and save her life. They thought there was nothing that could be done. But Dr. Willoughby knew that the options here were to let Gina die in peace or to try and fight, to try something new, to try many new things. knew things that probably weren't going to work because again, nobody survives rabies. But the options were for her to die without a fight or to die fighting. And maybe there was that tiny tiny chance that something might work. He scoured the internet looking for anything that could help. And when he went to Gina's parents with an idea to test something brand new that had never ever been tried before, they immediately said yes in desperation. They just they were willing to try anything to save their daughter.

23:20 Now, as we've already covered, rabies affects the brain. The virus travels up the spinal cord to its final destination where it slowly starts shutting down the body. It disrupts the brain's ability to regulate the body, things like respiration and heart rate. But very interestingly, the virus doesn't actually affect the brain itself. For most people who die from rabies, it's ultimately because the brain overstimulates the heart so much that eventually just stops. So, what would happen if medical professionals shut down the brain to the point they couldn't tell the body to do these things? What if they essentially separated the brain and the body and slowed the progress of this virus? Dr.

23:57 Willoughby would later say that this idea seemed so obvious that he didn't actually think it would work. But again, no one had ever tried this before. At this point, Gina was just hours away from dying. She probably wouldn't have survived the next day. So, they just they gave it a shot. On October 11th, 2004, doctors decided to put Gina in a medically induced coma, during which she was given a mixture of drugs, antivirals, and drugs to suppress brain activity. And that's how she remained for 14 days with no idea of the state she would be in if she ever woke up. Was she going to have any brain activity ever again? Was her body going to work?

24:34 Was she ever going to have any quality of life again? There was just no way of knowing. It was a complete waiting game. But after about a week, testing started to show that Gina's immune system was fighting the virus. And so they began to slowly taper off the anesthetics, keeping her in the coma. 2 weeks after being put into this coma, Gina wakes up and everyone holds their breath. This was completely unprecedented. Nobody knew what to expect here. But when she opened her eyes, Dr. Willoughby told her, "Look over at your mom." And she did so immediately. And from that moment, they knew she was still there.

25:11 Gina describes in her Guardian article how she has no memory from the first moment she got sick. Her first memories come as she woke up from this coma. She said she tried to scream, but no sound came out. And she describes how she was like a newborn. She couldn't walk. She couldn't talk. She couldn't sit up. She couldn't walk. And so she spent the next 11 weeks in hospital relearning everything with extensive physical, occupational, and speech therapy. Gina said to Fox 11 News that the road to recovery was very long, very painful, but she doesn't quit. She called it personal stubbornness. She is a medical marvel. She is the first person on record to survive symptomatic rabies.

25:52 And as you can probably imagine, a lot of media attention came along with that. On top of everything else she had going on, Gina now also had to cope with the eyes of the world on her recovery. She was 15. I can't imagine how overwhelming that was for her. Within just a few months, Gina had recovered most of her cognitive functions, but some things did still linger. She said she was very big on sports before, but she now found herself unable to walk or run in a straight line, so she had to stop playing. Her speech was also affected.

26:21 She spoke much more slowly and not as clearly as before. But doctors gave her a very special compound called tetrahydrobiopterin which is known to boost production of serotonin and dopamine which is needed to perform motor and speech functions. And this is likely what helped her a bit with rebuilding those things. And she just continued to improve over the coming months despite all medical evidence suggesting that she should have been dead. For the 20th anniversary of her experience, Gina wrote the article in the Guardian that I've referenced throughout this episode. She says that now she does still suffer from nerve damage, but generally she's really good.

26:57 She learned to drive. She went to college. She has three children of her own now. And she actually works to raise awareness of rabies so that this doesn't happen to anyone else. She works with a lot of charities to do this. She also works in a children's museum and she still loves animals. Amazingly, she even volunteers with back conservation charities feeling it's her duty to protect them. She is an incredible woman who survived against all odds. But despite the fact that Gina survived two decades ago, only around 30 or 40 people have been documented to survive rabies since that point. What worked for Gina has only worked to varying degrees for other victims in the years since. The treatment used for Gina was named the Milwaukee Protocol, and it has been experimented with by doctors in the years since on other patients with rabies. But it doesn't always work. I mean, when somebody gets rabies, chances

27:50 are they are going to die, so you're going to try whatever you can. But by 2015, experts at Cambridge University determined that the Milwaukee protocol just simply doesn't work. The article reads, and I quote, "Therapy suggested in the Milwaukee Protocol includes therapeutic coma, ketamine infusion, amantadine, and the screening prophylaxis, and management of cerebral vaso spasm. None of these therapies can be substantiated in rabies or other forms of acute viral and sephilitis. Serious concerns over the current protocol recommendations are warranted.

28:23 The recommendations made by the Milwaukee protocol warrant serious reconsideration before any future use of this failed protocol. So, not only have they said it doesn't work, they've also said they have serious concerns over its use. Their research looked at 29 rabies cases that were treated from 2005 to 2014. 12 of whom received the Milwaukee protocol and did not survive. There were two survivors in this case study. However, both of those survivors failed to develop anti-rabies virus antibodies. So, they probably didn't have rabies in the first place, just something with similar symptoms. The only rabies treatment endorsed by the CDC is the vaccination before the symptoms start.

29:07 That is the only thing that is guaranteed to work. Dr. Willoughby himself never had a big ego about this Milwaukee protocol. In a report in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005, he speculated that maybe Gina was just infected with a rarer or more weakened version of the virus. He attributes her survival to aggressive intensive care, the very quick decision to sedate her, and just 10% of sheer luck. He says he has no way of knowing exactly what it is that led to her survival. There is some evidence that the protocol might be more successful in older children and teenagers, but even then there's no solid evidence. Incredibly, whatever they did worked for Gina, but it might have just been luck. Maybe it was just something the doctors did. Maybe it was everything they did. They don't know exactly what it was. Gina surviving this sadly hasn't made rabies a survivable disease. Chances are that if you get

30:01 rabies and you don't swiftly get the vaccine, you are still going to die. It is a terrifying disease and please don't wait until you get bitten to get the vaccine. Get it first. The preexposure vaccine makes the postexposure vaccine so much more effective. And we are lucky enough now to live in a time where at least we have that for thousands of years before now. Many people never even had that small luxury of having a vaccine. Rabies has been known to humankind for at least 4,000 years. The origin of the word comes from the Latin word rair which means to rave or to rage. The neurological symptoms of rabies make it seem like somebody is going mad. They're ranting. They're raving. They're thrashing about. This is a disease that has always struck fear into humanity. with the first known recorded description of canine rabies made by Democrus around 500 BCE. This is an old old disease and it seeped into

30:59 our culture in ways that we probably wouldn't even notice. It's likely that amongst other things, rabies is what inspired folklore around werewolves and vampires. I mean, just think about it. With vampires, you've got vampirism being spread by being bitten usually in the neck. You've got a fear of water. With werewolves, it's this idea of transforming into a savage animal thanks to an animal bite. Rabies has always been this massive terrifying shadow hanging over the world, instilling deep fear into humanity. And it is not curable. But you can stop it in its tracks. You can stop it before the virus reaches the brain. And we are very lucky in the west to have access to the vaccines, to have access to post and preexposure vaccines for so many parts of the world. That is not the case.

31:46 Rabies is still the cause of so many deaths around the world. It is still a disease that strikes fear into so many people and I just think it's disgusting in the 21st century that we don't have worldwide healthcare. I think that is insane. That's for a whole other episode. I'll stop myself in my tracks there before I go off on a rant. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you enjoyed this video, if you like what I'm doing on my channel, then please make sure you interact with it in any way you can. Give it a like, leave a comment down below, make sure you subscribe if you're not already. And a huge thank you to Wild for partnering with me for this video. Again, like I said earlier, these videos wouldn't be possible without the help of sponsors, and I love Wild. I love what they do. I love what they stand for, and they are a really worthy company to support in my humble opinion.

32:29 So, make sure you go check them out. George Marie 20 or the QR code on screen right now for 20% off. I'll see you in the next one. Bye, guys.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "the girl who survived an UNSURVIVABLE disease"?

In order: 0:00 rabies, Wild, Gina Gizy, asthma theory; 5:00 rabies, postexposure prophylaxis, Center for Disease Control, rabies like virus; 10:00 rabies, hydrophobia; 15:00 rabies, Gina Gizy, rabies vaccine, postexposure prophylaxis; 20:00 rabies, Dr. Rodney Willoughby, therapeutic coma, Center for Disease Control; 25:00 rabies, Milwaukee Protocol, Dr. Rodney Willoughby, Guardian; 30:00 rabies, preexposure vaccine, Wild.

What is mentioned in this Georgia Marie episode?

19 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including rabies, Gina Gizy, Dr. Rodney Willoughby, Milwaukee Protocol, rabies vaccine, postexposure prophylaxis. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "the girl who survived an UNSURVIVABLE disease"?

The episode runs 33 min; the transcript is about 6,036 words in 44 timestamped sections.

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