Personal
When she arrived at the hospital in Pocatello, Idaho, in the spring of 1982, seven-year-old Kristle Merzlock was in a coma after spending 20 minutes at the bottom of a swimming pool. Bill Longhurst, the lanky physician who received Kristle in the emergency room, quickly summoned pediatric intern Melvin Morse, then 27, the only doctor at the hospital who had performed a significant number of resuscitations. But even Morse, with all his experience, and his outstanding academic credentials -- a medical degree from the George Washington University and a research fellowship funded by the National Cancer Institute -- was not prepared for what was about to happen.