By Keith Perry
As little Thomas Wilkie pedals happily on his bike and throws a ball to his twin sister, it's hard to believe that two years ago he was on the brink of death.
Thomas was starved of vital oxygen after the birth of his twin, Georgina, and doctors at National
Women's Hospital told his distraught parents that he was almost certain to develop severe brain damage - if he survived.
The only chance was an experiment where for 72 hours Thomas' brain would be gently chilled with a device that two Auckland Medical School professors had made from an old office water cooler and a baby's bonnet.
For the first 18 months of Thomas' life the family nervously watched for signs that the pioneering experiment had worked. Paediatricians say he appears to be a normal, talkative little boy.
His parents, David Wilkie and Jane de Borchgrave, say they cannot thank the researchers enough. "Had Thomas been born anywhere else in the world, no matter how good the hospital, it is unlikely that they could have saved Thomas from severe brain damage," says Jane de Borchgrave, aged 34, of Balmoral.
All the evidence suggested an "amazingly simple invention from little old New Zealand" had made the difference.
The cooling cap, created by Professor Peter Gluckman and the late Associate Professor Tania Gunn, is now being tested in the United States, Britain and New Zealand.
