BITTER COLD: Passengers from Flight 1549 climb out of the airplane exit, many of them already drenched in water
Image: Image of plane by derek7272 via flickr
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When the Airbus A320 took off from New York City's LaGuardia Airport yesterday, the air temperature outside was well below freezing—around 20 degrees Fahrenheit (–6.7 degrees Celsius). The 150 passengers on board no doubt assumed they would spend the next hour and a half in the cushioned seats of a cozy, warm airplane cabin en route to Charlotte, N.C. Little did they know that just minutes after takeoff they would instead be bobbing on the frigid waters of the Hudson River off Manhattan's west side.
Just minutes after Capt. Chesley Sullenberger orchestrated a near-perfect emergency water landing (after a collision with a flock of Canada geese reportedly knocked out both engines), water began seeping into the plane. Two passengers treated for hypothermia at nearby Saint Luke's–Roosevelt Hospital emergency room said that the water was waist-high almost immediately, according to Gabe Wilson, associate medical director of the hospital's emergency medicine department. According to media reports, some of the passengers were submerged up their necks in water once they had evacuated the plane and awaited rescue.
"They were all shaking from both the [cold] temperature and stress," says Wilson, who treated 11 of the plane's passengers for hypothermia, a potentially fatal condition that occurs when the body cannot generate enough heat to compensate for the warmth it loses.
Many of the symptoms of hypothermia resemble those of a drunken stupor: sleepiness, clumsiness, confusion and even slurred speech. Doctors also check for shivering, a weak pulse, low blood pressure, and a body temperature below 96 degrees F (35.5 degrees C). (Normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees F, or 37 degrees C.)
Fortunately, none of the passengers that he treated had body temperatures below 95 degrees F (35 degrees C), Wilson says, adding that all they needed to warm up were Bair Huggers, special blankets hooked to a heater which send warming air currents over the body.
But what if the passengers had not been rescued so fast? What would have happened if they had spent hours wading or swimming through the Hudson, or in any cold water, awaiting rescue? We asked Christopher McStay, an emergency room doctor at New York City's Bellevue Hospital Center about the potential consequences and treatments for hypothermia.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
How long can a person survive in water that is 41 degrees F like the Hudson was when the plane went down?
When you first go into extremely cold water there is this weird response called a cold shock response. People start to hyperventilate immediately. For one to three minutes you breathe very fast and deep, uncontrollably. If you go underwater, you could swallow water and die. …I can't tell you how often this occurs but it's certainly a very real phenomenon. Once that response goes away, you're fine…for awhile.
Generally, a person can survive in 41-degree F (5-degree C) water for 10, 15 or 20 minutes before the muscles get weak, you lose coordination and strength, which happens because the blood moves away from the extremities and toward the center, or core, of the body.
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10 Comments
Add CommentOne aspect of survival when submerged in cold water and facing hypothermia is the psychological one. It's been shown that those who stay focused and determined are able to stave off some of the lethal effects much better...and there are other examples of people who are neither obese nor specially prepared to tap into the mind/body's ability to stay functioning beyond what clinical studies say humans should be able to. And then there is the fact that those who have been retrieved from cold water who appear to be drowned sometimes are not and can be revived even though showing no sign of life well beyond what normally would be considered possible. Life is both defiant and surprisingly tenacious.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFvsT
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a miracle that all survived this crash. What a fantastic job all the rescue workers did as well as the pilot!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWould it be feasible or beneficial to engineer a device that facilitates treatment of hypothermia victims by focusing beams of infrared directly to critical organs inside the body? What difficulties would this entail?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere was some obese Iclandic guy who swam at least 2 miles in 2�C water and then repeated the feat in a cooled swimming pool observed by medis
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Herb Benson of Harvard records in one of his books that he and his colleagues observed Tibetan Buddhist Monks in the Himalayas meditating in bare bodies in sub-zero temperatures and could dry up freezing wet towels spread on their naked backs!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI experienced hypothermia twice. First time, I was SCUBA diving and went below the thermocline in a cold northern lake. Fortunately, my diving buddies made sure I got out of the water soon enough.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond time was even dumber: I tried to swim across a deep spot in a fast flowing trout stream after retrieving my fish lure. That time, I experienced tachycardia and got very sick. I barely made it to shore. That was after only a few minutes exposure to water at around 60 degrees F. Both incidents happened during the summer. This is how easy it is to get into trouble if you underestimate the danger.
Strangely enough, it is possible to survive submersion in extremely cold water (near freezing). I believe the record involved a boy who fell through the ice and was submerged for half an hour. I suspect that the extremely cold water acted to preserve tissue. He was revived and appeared later on to be without any cognitive deficit. I emphasize that this is possible (but very rare), and hence the precise circumstances of the hypothermic episode must be known.Of course, they usually are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbut I want to ask?? after 20min in frigid water or in 41-degree F (5-degree C) is there any adaptive response to prolong the time that allow any person to live in frigid water more than 20min ??
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthank you
During the last big war German doctors used political prisoners as test subjects to find the best way to treat aircraft pilots that had been brought down in channel between England and France.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think immersion in 120°F water was the method they chose.