When I was a teenager, my two brothers and I took a series of wilderness survival classes. I don’t remember much of what we learned, but I distinctly remember the instructor talking about hypothermia. He told us that people don’t freeze to death, they get hypothermia and die. I guess that jarred my reality enough that it stuck with me all these years. Now I’m in the middle of CERT training, the first aid part, and one of the topics we covered was hypothermia. That same hypothermia that was killing people in the outdoors over 20 years ago is still the number one killer of outdoor folks.
Hypothermia occurs when your body’s core temperature falls below 95 degrees Fahrenheit. This can happen easily in the winter, but can and does occur any time of the year, especially if you are wet and there is a breeze. There are three stages: mild, moderate, and severe.
Symptoms of Mild Hypothermia:
- Body shivering that can be stopped
- Redness or blueness of the skin
- Numbness
Symptoms of Moderate Hypothermia:
- Body shivering that cannot be controlled
- Mumbles, Grumbles, and Stumbles: Slurred speech, unpredictable behavior, and listlessness/aimless wandering
- Confusion, memory loss
- Shallow breathing
Symptoms of Severe Hypothermia:
- No more shivering
- Exhaustion
- Loss of conciousness
Treatment:
As soon as you recognize the signs of hypothermia in yourself or someone you are with, it is imperative to start treating it.
- Warm them up. Remove any wet clothing, build a fire, get out of the elements. Wrap them in a blanket and cover the head and neck as well–you lose a lot of heat through your head. The instructor of my teenage survival course said one of the best ways to warm someone up was to get a warm person into a sleeping bag with them. You may need to remove layers of clothing to make the most effective use of your own body heat to help warm up your cold friend.
- Give them sugar, food, and warm drinks. The reason the shivering stops between stage two and three is that the person has used their energy stores. A sweet drink can help their body have the energy to continue shivering and the shivering is the body’s own way to get itself warmed back up. Warm Gatorade with added sugar is perfect. Avoid alcohol or caffeine.
- Give them a warm bath. This is a great idea if you have warm water and a bathtub handy. If you’re really out in the woods you won’t have that luxury. However, you may be able to . . .
- Warm the primary pressure points. Think of the places your large blood vessels are near the surface–neck, groin, and arm pits. You can use a hot water bottle if you’re near civilization, or you can use those handy little hand or toe warmers.
- If your victim is unconscious, lay them down, raise their legs, and get them warm as soon as possible. A person whose body temperature drops low enough can look dead but still be alive. Their heart can beat as slow as 3 beats per minute, which may not be detected when feeling for a pulse. With hypothermia, cold and dead is not 100% accurate. You want to warm your victim up before making the judgment on whether they are alive or not.
Keeping your body’s core temperature stable is an important part of staying alive in the outdoors. Knowing the signs and treatment of hypothermia could save the life of a loved one or even yourself.
Keep preparing! Angela
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I didn’t know that last one – VERY good to know, thanks!
Here’s another thing I didn’t know until recently, it’s not directly related, unless a child fell into very cold water: Babes and small children have a special reaction to try to prevent drowning, their esophagus closes shut before they drown.
If a child is unresponsive, not breathing, after being submerged in water, thump their back medium hard (still being careful w/ babes) to “shock” the esophagus to reopen. They might start breathing again on their own, but probably won’t. However now the air blown in via CPR will finally get to their lungs to increase their chances of being revived.
The retired EMT that taught us this in CPR class said he didn’t know what age this stops happening, but if a submerged child was unresponsive, he’d sure try it if the CPR wasn’t helping.
He said he had no idea why this isn’t being formally taught at CPR courses. My guess is that only a few EMTs know about it, or maybe it doesn’t always work? If that’s why, well if the blown in air isn’t reaching their lungs, I’ll take any chances I could get!
“With hypothermia, cold and dead is not 100% accurate.”
100% right on that. My wife’s an ER doc and their rule is that you are not “dead” until you are warm and dead.
Fantastic!! My daughter actually almost drowned in our flooded creek when she was 2.5 years old. It was an amazing spiritual experience for me.
I was cleaning up dishes from making a casserole for dinner. All of a sudden I was freezing, shivering cold. I was on the phone with my sister and said, “somethings wrong.”.. I looked out the window at all the kids and their aunt, but I didn’t see my 2 year old. I asked where she was, and they said inside. I said,”No she isn’t. FIND HER”.
My 11 year old sister in law and my 6 year old son started walking the trail between my and my mother in law’s back yards and they heard Peaches scream “help me!”, they ran, she was in the middle of a very swollen creek (now river). She just happened to have a log catch her that was perpendicular to the current.
My SIL, jumped in and grabbed Peaches, she then pushed her towards my 6 year old and he held on to her while my SIL climbed the sharp blackberry bushes to get out. (BTW, she felt really bad tossing Peaches onto the sharp blackberry bushes). They ran up to my MIL’s house with a very blue Peaches, whose eyes were open, but she was no longer talking.
MY MIL was on the phone and hung up on her sister to come and bring Peaches to me.
I had hung up with my sister and was looking outside for Peaches with my phone in my hand. I saw my MIL and my Peaches.. My VERY BLUE peaches. Her skin was the color of her blue jeans!
We ran inside and we stripped her down and put her in a tub of not too warm, didn’t want to cause shock, but warm water.
When she started to pink up and shiver, we put warmer water in.
We found out she had fallen in the river in my back yard, and travelled 100 yards down stream to where the log caught her at my MIL’s yard.
We were fortunate.
Listen to that still small voice. And know your survival skills.
listening to the small voice is the hardest thing to do. sometimes it’s so quiet you can’t hear it at all, but it’s still there. I get that! has happened to me many times and I’ve been trying very hard to “hone” my listening skills………