Thanks Brian, my point about rigor was essentially the same as yours. I was using the generic term "seizure" to describe *rigor* without *mortis*. Technically that term assumes *death* which as you accurately point out is more complicated than generally recognized.
My comments were for the topic here as begun by Elijah because my essential point was that the observations of *fact* in this case were getting hyped by the media and the *miracle* issue was more distraction than relevant. I am interested in the aspects of brain activity as described in the case because she was without such for a considerable period but as you point out there are precedents for such but usually the extent of cellular damage is pretty great unless the patient is sustained on life support that continues the flow of O2 to the brain.
I was also interested in the case when I saw it because it reminded me of the cases of hypothermia drowning victims (which had ironically contributed to the development of the techniques used for life support in this case) and I think there is still a lot of overlap with cryo that is relevant to the reanimation phase of the process. Also it did not appear that anyone here was mentioning these aspects with respect to why the patient had recovered and instead had immediately gone into claiming *miracles*.
I find the search for miracles a debilitating distraction from the advancement of understanding and an excuse to cease the development of understand for complicated observations; hence my reasons for commenting at all.
Why do people commonly think that flat EEGs are "brain death"? Because prolonged absence of brain electrical activity without identifiable cause is a marker for brain tissue damage that really is brain death. In other words, absent brain activity is a symptom of brain death, not brain death itself. Sometimes symptoms can be present without the disease.
Another great example of Bayesian logic at work. Thanks for clarifying what I was trying to say less clearly. I did not say she was brain dead for the record. I did say; "she showed no brain activity and was revived." All such examples of prolonged inactivity interest me as pointing toward aspects of revival procedures.
I also think you are highlighting the larger point for the incorrect use of a flat line EEG to define death because as you are pointing out that is putting the cart before the horse. I have asserted before and I think we need to bring this up again in light of recent discoveries, that we need a new *legal* definition for death, if not just a *scientific* one.
What do you think about using detection for the presence of the specific proteins that appear throughout body approximately 40 minutes after the stoppage of blood flow that initiate massive cell apoptosis and decomposition?
One problem I see with that definition from a legal standard is that the very reason we keep *organ donors* on life support is to prevent these substances from forming and destroying the potentially useful donor organs but if we change the definition of death in the manner I described then we could not consider anyone on life support dead.
How could we go beyond the simplistic use of EEG as defining brain death to better determine irreversible neural inactivity?
And if we had such a revised definition would that also create a Catch 22 compromise for the ability to provide cryogenic suspension as per such a revised law because the new definition of death would also be after the critical time needed to place a cryo patient in suspension?
I realize I am somewhat changing the subject here and I apologize Elijah. If this aspect of the discussion continues we will spin it off so as not to compromise your thread if you want.
As a corollary to my last question Brian: do you think we can ever get to a more rational "death statute" policy that makes cryo suspension an elective procedure rather than one confused with euthanasia or a postmortem process for handling "physical remains"?
(thanks for your time in actually checking it out 
)
