The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#71

Post by Sam_Odio » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:35 PM UTC

I carry a PLB at all times in my vehicle [1]. In the US this device will summon rescue via satellite. I recommend it for anyone who spends time in remote areas. If you value your life at $1MM and there's a 1 in 3500 chance [2] that summoning emergency services in a remote area will save your life then this is a helpful risk-mitigating tool [3].

1. http://www.amazon.com/ACR-Electronics-ResQLink-Personal-Loca...

2. $280 / $1MM ~ 1/3500.

3. A useful metric might be 911 calls, of which there are 240 million in 2008[4], for the US population of 305 million. If you assume 5% of the calls are life-or-death, that your daily odds of needing to call in remote areas are the same as the country mean, that you spend 5 days a year in remote areas, and a 5-year useful life for the device, then there is a 0.2% chance the device will save your life.

240/310 * .05 * 5/365 * 5 ~ 0.002

4. http://www.911dispatch.com/info/fact_figures.html

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#72

Post by UnFleshedOne » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:35 PM UTC

shaydoc wrote: post #56

sanotehu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are indeed. As a medical student I had the privilege of seeing a heart valve being installed. They are a witness to how far medicine has progressed since the days of barber surgeons. The blood is taken out of your body through the femoral vein (under the skin between your hip and your nether regions), taken through the perfusion machine and pumped back into the femoral artery. Because at this stage the hear…

Amazing, the knowledge acquired, distilled and shared to enable this is just wanted immense. My father had a major bypass op 6 years ago and I remember him saying how he felt when he first awoke after the surgery. He mentioned feeling cold!

I felt very cold waking up after surgery for lung collapse (as in, shivering uncontrollably, not really hypothermic I guess). I don't think they specifically lowered my temperature. Maybe that is a common effect of general anesthesia?

Those heated blankets they have in post-surgery rooms are very nice...

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#73

Post by mberning » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:36 PM UTC

I read this years ago and it really stuck with me. Now when I venture out into inclement weather I always load up the car with blankets, water, food, ratchet straps, and other emergency supplies.

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#74

Post by andyl » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:40 PM UTC

I teach search and rescue people how to travel on skis or snowshoes and live in winter mountains. If you are prepared, you can stay out in sub-zero for days and days very comfortably.

A key skill is constant regulation of your body temperature. You never want to become too hot/sweaty or too cold. If too cold - get into shelter, drink something hot, eat carbs, add clothes, move faster. If too hot - remove clothes, or move slower. Fix temperature problems immediately - never tough it out.

Common mistakes: people get distracted by gadgets, or they get impatient and start to wander. Then they lose awareness of their body temperature, and become hypothermic. Once you get hypothermic, things fall apart fast.

If you do winter travel in remote areas, carry warm clothes, water and food. Then if you get stuck, be patient and steady. Follow this advice, and the odds of freezing to death go way down! :-)

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#75

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:42 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#76

Post by pdog » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:47 PM UTC

Anyone else find the second-person narrative distracting?

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#77

Post by funkaster » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:49 PM UTC

Some time ago, during the winter we went to visit the Atacama Desert with my wife (she was born there). We rented a small car and my wife told me "are you sure this will work at 4,000 meters high? (13,100 feet)" - we were going to be travelling around some small towns and one of the roads reached that altitude. Stupidly enough, I replied to her "sure... these are modern cars, with fuel injection and smart oxygenation".

The roads were covered with snow, and suddenly we got stuck in a snow-covered road. Being a firefighter (trained in rescue) I had some idea of what I had to do... but of course, no shovel or any other tool to remove the snow. For 1 hour or so I tried to remove the snow with no luck. I got into the car, told my wife that the smartest thing would be to stay in the car. If necessary, the fuel in the car would keep us worm for days.

After some time, a car came down the road and helped us out... only to get stucked again, this time because the car actually got de-oxygenated at exactly 4,000 meters... Luckily this time the same car was behind us for a few minutes and we could push the car until the downhill.

Now we tell the story with friends and laugh about it. But if you ever go to some place that you have a slight chance of getting stuck in the snow: pack a shovel or at least make sure you have the fuel tank full. And never get out of the car wandering to find something.

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#78

Post by pixie_ » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:55 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #26

pixie_ wrote: post #3

What's amazing to me is Eskimos lived without fire.

Where did you get that information? The Inuit traditionally use a qulliq/kudlik (a lamp fueled by seal oil) for light, heat, etc. and everything I can find now says that it's not something introduced in the last couple of hundred years. For example, http://books.google.se/books?id=G49CwQpozoUC&pg=PA29&#38... says that Inuit were curious why people were hunting whales for oil for light, when they knew that seal oil wa…

Can you find anything that says fire was a necessity for survival for paleo-eskimo cultures because I remember reading it wasn't, but I'm having trouble googling a source for or against it.

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#79

Post by walrus » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 6:58 PM UTC

bitwize wrote: post #70

recursive wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New Fahrenheit is the same as old Fahrenheit. In other words, it never changed.

Fahrenheit is old. Celsius is modern. The real avant-garde give all temperatures in kelvins...

Quit living in the past. We use Planck temperature now.

Re: The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death (1997)

#80

Post by funkaster » Fri, Dec 28, 2012, 7:00 PM UTC

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #67

corin_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit, ignore the following: Worst was where they switched without even mentioning it. One paragraph they're still using F and said "The lowest recorded core temperature in a surviving adult is 60.8 degrees." , then the very next paragraph, with no talk of changing units, they talked about people dying "though temperatures never fell below freezing and ranged as high as 45". Just because the second story happened in E…

They do use kilocalorie that is defined with degrees of celsius though. It isn't as bad here, but unit mixing is extremely annoying in aviation books in canada. In the same chapter of "From The Ground Up" you can see nautical miles, statutory miles, multiples of thousands of feet for height (took me a while to realize a mile is not a multiple of 1000 feet, wtf?), degrees of celsius, pounds, kilograms, kilopascals, mi…

I also find it completely strange that here in the US people tend to use feet as a sub-division of miles, but the mile/foot relation is not trivial: 1 mile == 5280 feet. And why would you need so many units for length? mile, yard, feet, inch... All (apparently) unrelated.

The metric system on the other hand, is so elegant and simple. Only one unit: meter.