There are many factors that determine how fast a person submerged in water cools. People who are obese, who have a lot of soft tissue that provides a lot of insulation, are likely to last longer than lanky people, because the body fat provides insulation. Another factor is how much of the body is actually underwater. (Water conducts heat away from the body much faster than air does, even if the water temperature is 20 degrees higher than the air temperature. So, the more the body is submerged, the faster its heat will be drained, according to Craig Heller, a Stanford University physiologist). If you have a flotation device that you can pull yourself on top of, you are much better off.
How cold does the water have to be to put a person at risk for hypothermia?
Even water temperatures as high as 75 and 80 degrees F (24 and 27 degrees C) can be dangerous, but it would most likely take much longer than 15 minutes to become debilitated. There is no set time for when hypothermia will set in, but generally the colder the water, the faster it happens.
So if you find yourself submerged in icy-cold water, what should you do?
If you have a flotation device, you should get on top of that device and hug yourself to keep as much of your body away from the water as possible. If you keep your arms and legs in tight, close to the core of the body, you keep your limbs from being exposed to the cooling water. If you do not have a flotation device, get out of the water as fast as you possibly can.
What is the difference between frostbite and hypothermia?
Frostbite is actually the freezing of tissue [such as skin, muscle and nerve tissue]. Suppose you're on top of Mount Everest and you're bundled up; your core temperature is 98.6 degrees F. If you take off your gloves, you have exposed that area and it may get frostbite. That's not hypothermia. Hypothermia is a drop in the core temperature of the body.
When are you in danger of getting frostbite and were these survivors at risk?
For frostbite to occur, the tissue actually has to freeze—meaning a dip to 32 degrees F (0 degree C) or lower. The parts of the body submerged in water are not in danger of becoming frostbitten, because the water temperature (41 degrees F) is not freezing. However, the parts of the body exposed to air are at risk because the air temperature is 20 degrees F (–7 degrees C), which is below freezing.
Can you die from frostbite?
You can certainly die from frostbite, but that is exceptionally rare. Usually when people die from frostbite, it's from some complication down the road such as gangrene, the decay and death of tissue which occurs when it does not receive enough blood or becomes infected.
What do you do to treat hypothermia?
If your body temperature is above 95 degrees F and you're healthy, your body will warm itself up and you generally don't need treatment.
If your body is 90 degrees to 95 degrees F (32 to 35 degrees C) and you look okay, we'll do things like put a warming blanket around you. If your temperature drops much lower, we might give you an IV with warm fluids, insert a breathing tube to supply the lungs with warm air, and insert tubes through the mouth and urethra to put hot saline into the stomach and bladder, respectively. Heating from the inside (by introducing these fluids) helps warm the body's core tissues faster than heating the body from the outside (by using blankets or putting a person in a warm environment, for instance).
If a patient comes into the emergency room with a body temperature between 70 and 80 degrees F (21 and 27 degrees C), they often appear dead—or are dead. Cardiac arrest often occurs in this temperature range. Even if it appears someone has passed away, it is still important to warm them (using the techniques described above), because with this degree of hypothermia the heart can slow to a point at which doctors cannot even detect it. Thus, they could make the mistake of presuming someone dead who is actually still alive.
For these unconscious patients, we also do cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on them and often use a cardiopulmonary bypass (heart–lung) machine that will actually oxygenate the blood and provide a pulse for them.
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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.