practical cold water experience

[ruge13]

Has anyone actually been submerged in current water temps? The coldest I have ever been I was 52 degrees with a 7mm wetsuit. Hood and gloves while diving. It was freezing even with the wetsuit. I was dunked once while ice fishing but I was very young and do not remember much other than it was very painful. Other than that I do not really know how bad it will be and if I will have a fighting chance. Everything I have learned seems based on speculation other than the occasional article about survivors or drowning. I am guilty of chalking accidents up to safety...jeez they didn;t have life preservers...jeez they were out too far and inexperienced. but that may not be the case. It could be that maybe they were excellent rescue swimmers for the coast guard for 20 years and are capable of swimming miles in heavy seas without a life preserver but in this case the water temps shut down their body long before any reasonable rescue attempt.

I have some questions. How long do I have? We have been talking about this "compromise" but does anyone really know? How good is this compromise or are we just kidding ourselves?

I am not interested in stories about it, just practical useful information. Like were you capable of swimming? What were the water temps? What clothes were you wearing? Hypothermia? How long were you submerged? How long after did it take for the recovery process to start one you began drying out?

[SamRiley]

A must read (http://www.ussartf.org/cold_water_survival.htm)

[bluewatr]

THANKS SAM!!!!!

[RIBill]

while in college, I had a winter immersion in a small river in eastern CT. my brother and I were canoeing the river and went thru a funnel where standing waves came in over the gunwales. we went under water while still sitting in our seats. It was brutal, immediate loss of breath followed by hyperventilating. I remember being impressed by that reaction. In terms of lucidity, or not, I insisted on holding onto my canoe so that it was not swept downstream. good judgement or not, it demonstrates that my mind was capable of some thought despite the breathing trauma. Within a minute or two, we were on shore and stashed the canoe while we walked back up to the car. Enroute, it began to snow. idiocy. I was very impressed (scared) by that experience. I often thought about doing a test dunk down at the local beach (in shallow water) to assess the body's reaction and assumptions re: clothing, self-rescue etc. May be a good idea to bring a buddy or two, not to mention change of clothes etc.

[AlderBrookFarm]

Excellent article. I also read somewhere, that if possible you should assume the fetal position to minimize heat loss. That seems to me that one would almost have to have a life jacket on, not to mention that I wasn't thinking about the useless extremities brought up in the article. I capsiized a dinghy in a frostbite sailboat series when I was younger, and I remember the wind being taken out of me and the hyperventilating. Course lifejackets were mandatory and a chase boat was there almost immediately.

[SamRiley]

I will be there on shore to keep an eye on Shaun and pull him out if necessary. Plan is for him to go in just long enough to assess his reaction to cold water and gauge how long he might remain functional in the water. He will be wearing all of his usual kayak gear including PFD. I'll have him on a very short leash... literally. Would not be smart for me to freeze if he has to be pulled out.

The fetal position is used if you are not planning on attempting to get out of the water but are going to try and conserve body heat and try to hang in until help arrives. I'd imagine that we would all be scrambling to get hack into our yaks if we tipped. Thing to do is try so stay calm. Move deliberately, right and pump out the yak, deploy the paddle float and get back in. This is not the time of year to learn how to do self rescue. If you haven't practiced it by now, please stay off the water until Spring.

[Wes]

Here's more info on hypothermia (http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/guille/wiki.pl?Hypothermia_Table)