I wonder if people who have training with cold water resist significantly longer. I knew Finns who would go in mid January to swim for ten minutes in a hole cut in the ice of a frozen lake, then sit around for a while, dress up and go on with their day. And that was without sauna.
The truth about cold water
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Re: The truth about cold water
#12I wonder if people who have training with cold water resist significantly longer. I knew Finns who would go in mid January to swim for ten minutes in a hole cut in the ice of a frozen lake, then sit around for a while, dress up and go on with their day. And that was without sauna.
I know a couple of Finns that have swum everyday for decades, no matter what the water temperature (eg through ice). They claim it builds up brown fat. Maybe the ratio of brown fat has something to do with it.
Re: The truth about cold water
#13A very good article that shows some perceived misconceptions about cold water survival. I spent 4 years on 20 different large marine seismic exploration boats with most of them operating in the North Sea. I have taken 3 North Sea Survival courses and a many safety meetings for good measure. Every person that I have worked with has been well aware of the consequences of falling overboard in water barely above freezing…
I particularly like the tone in "I know that you think you know all there is to know about hypothermia already (and maybe you do), but read ahead and see if you aren’t surprised by something" given that someone actually downvoted me when I took exception to the line "whatever you just said, it's wrong" in the "Where Does A Tree Get Its Mass?" article[1] when it was posted to HN. There is no need for all the hyperbole…
You should have read on; it was just an attention grabber :)
Re: The truth about cold water
#14I wonder if people who have training with cold water resist significantly longer. I knew Finns who would go in mid January to swim for ten minutes in a hole cut in the ice of a frozen lake, then sit around for a while, dress up and go on with their day. And that was without sauna.
Some practitioners of meditation, in particular Tummo, claim that they can change their body temperature which allows them to withstand extreme cold:
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html
The world record holder for ice immersion (1 hour, 44 minutes) is Wim Hof who describes himself as a Tummo master.
Re: The truth about cold water
#15A very good article that shows some perceived misconceptions about cold water survival. I spent 4 years on 20 different large marine seismic exploration boats with most of them operating in the North Sea. I have taken 3 North Sea Survival courses and a many safety meetings for good measure. Every person that I have worked with has been well aware of the consequences of falling overboard in water barely above freezing…
> Another problem arises when you are rescued as he points out, but the stories I have heard are about the survivors being put in showers to raise their body temperature back up and collapsing and drowning in a puddle of water in the shower. This problem shouldn't even be a problem, you shouldn't leave them alone when they are recovering! Well, IMHO.
It's still a problem, because raising the body temperature quickly can be dangerous in itself. To preserve core temperature, the body centralizes circulation, i.e. circulates blood only through the vital organs. If you're warmed up suddenly, it can cause this centralization to end prematurely, mixing still-too-cold blood from your extremities with the core blood and dropping your core temperature suddenly and fatally.
Re: The truth about cold water
#16I wonder if people who have training with cold water resist significantly longer. I knew Finns who would go in mid January to swim for ten minutes in a hole cut in the ice of a frozen lake, then sit around for a while, dress up and go on with their day. And that was without sauna.
Some practitioners of meditation, in particular Tummo, claim that they can change their body temperature which allows them to withstand extreme cold: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/04.18/09-tummo.html The world record holder for ice immersion (1 hour, 44 minutes) is Wim Hof who describes himself as a Tummo master. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof
Re: The truth about cold water
#17There's an Icelandic legend that beat all this crap in 1984. His ship sank with all his friends and co-workers. He swam to shore, walked bare feet on razor sharp lava and walked to town. Guðlaugur Friðþórsson.
His descriptions are chilling. "When the ship sank from underneath us and we were submerged for the second time we decided [the three of us] to swim. We decided not to help each other which would have been hopeless. We spotted the lighthouse and started swimming towards it. Soon there was only the two of us left calling between us, but soon enough I stopped hearing any calls."
More amazingness: On his way to shore a ship came within 100m of him. He spoke to "múkki" an imagined sailor's friend on the way, told himself jokes and said some prayers. When he came to shore he had to hold onto a rock wall while waiting for the tide to recede. While walking he spotted a bathtub used for lifestock feeding he punched through a layer of ice to get drinking water.
Re: The truth about cold water
#18So the advice to survive in cold water:
wear a life jacket?
Re: The truth about cold water
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Another problem arises when you are rescued as he points out, but the stories I have heard are about the survivors being put in showers to raise their body temperature back up and collapsing and drowning in a puddle of water in the shower. This problem shouldn't even be a problem, you shouldn't leave them alone when they are recovering! Well, IMHO.
It's still a problem, because raising the body temperature quickly can be dangerous in itself. To preserve core temperature, the body centralizes circulation, i.e. circulates blood only through the vital organs. If you're warmed up suddenly, it can cause this centralization to end prematurely, mixing still-too-cold blood from your extremities with the core blood and dropping your core temperature suddenly and fatally…
> mixing still-too-cold blood from your extremities with the core blood and dropping your core temperature suddenly and fatally.
Unlikely. there will be very little of that cold blood to mix. Very little. Adding heat will cause your core temperature rise. What is more likely to happen is that the sudden vasodilation drops your blood pressure, and your heart, possibly still in it's stunned cold state, can't compensate with stroke rate or variability. Then you risk cerebral hypoperfusion in the face of increasing metabolic demand (warm cells run faster, burn more glucose, need more oxygen to burn that glucose)
Re: The truth about cold water
#20A very good article that shows some perceived misconceptions about cold water survival. I spent 4 years on 20 different large marine seismic exploration boats with most of them operating in the North Sea. I have taken 3 North Sea Survival courses and a many safety meetings for good measure. Every person that I have worked with has been well aware of the consequences of falling overboard in water barely above freezing…
In maritime navigation class, we were taught that artificially heating a person who has been chilled down (that is, heating by giving them something warm to drink, putting them in a hot shower etc.) sometimes result in something very similar to a cold shock response, a sort of "hot shock response" known to cause severe after-effects and apparently even death.
Tests carried out by the Swedish Sea Rescue Society along with data from over one hundred years of recorded incidents, showed that the safest way to sustain a person suffering a cold shock or near hypothermia is to simply uncloth them (if soaked in water), blanket them lightly, and let their body heat itself up to normal temperature, utilizing the time in parallel to make sure heart rate and blood pressure stabilizes in calm tempo.