Modern hypothermia protocols now mandate that patients found in apparent cardiac arrest due to hypothermia receive aggressive rewarming before death is declared.

Hospitals in cold climates routinely maintain equipment for active core rewarming, including techniques for directly warming the blood.

The phrase “No one is dead until they are warm and dead” is now taught in emergency medicine programs as a foundational principle of hypothermia management.

It is applied every year, in emergency rooms and field settings around the world, to patients who might otherwise have been declared dead before they were given the chance to recover.

Jean Hilliard did not know she was contributing to the development of medical doctrine.