A man described as a "human icicle" after he "froze to death" was brought back to life with repeated discharges of 5,000 volts into his body.
Vladimir Yakovlevich, 55, was in a state of "extreme hypothermia" after six hours in subzero temperatures.
The construction worker was saved and admitted to hospital in Siberia, Russia, and beat all odds to survive.
It's believed he collapsed after drinking alcohol.
Dmitry Mitsukov, who resuscitated Vladimir, said: "The patient was icy to the touch.
"Snowflakes did not melt on his face.
"His peripheral pulse could not be felt, only the faintest traces with a stethoscope."
A mobile heat gun was used to warm his body which led to a ventricular fibrillation of the heart. Medics shocked the heart with 24 blasts of 5,000 volts in repeated electric shocks.
"It was impossible to imagine that this man could survive, but we did everything to try and save him", a nurse said.
The resuscitation included indirect heart massage and defibrillation.
A stopped heart cannot be restarted with defibrillation, said the hospital.
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A source at the hospital said: "The current does not restart a stalled heart, but reloads the failing work of the organ.
"If a healthy person receives a shock of 5,000 volts, they may die on the spot.
"In the case of this frozen patient, the task seemed impossible."
By comparison in the use of execution by electrocution, a jolt of 2,000 volts is typically used, destroying the brain, followed by shocks with a lessor voltage.
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The hospital source added: "After 15 minutes of resuscitation a threadlike pulse appeared in the peripheral arteries, but the heart refused to work - the rhythm after the electric shock recovered only for a few seconds, and then fibrillation occurred again.
"It was like trying again and again to start the frozen motor of a car."
After 48 hours, Vladimir started speaking again.
His first words were from a nursery rhyme, it's said.
"The puppy looked at the white snow and could not understand anything," he said.
