jerry
Guest
I lost count of the number of survivors I annoyed in the back of the helicopter because I wouldn’t let them move. I had a rule – if they came from a cold water environment – they laid down and stayed down until the doctors in the E.R. said they could stand. It didn’t matter to me how good they felt or how warm they thought they were. Because the final killer of cold water immersion is post-rescue collapse. Hypothermia does things besides making everything colder. Victims are physiologically different for awhile. One of the things that changes is called heart-rate variability. The hearts ability to speed up and slow down has been effected. Getting up and moving around requires your heart to pump more blood, being upright and out of the water is also taxing, then any number of other factors collide and the heart starts to flutter instead of pump – and down you go. Victims of immersion hypothermia are two things; lucky to be alive, and fragile. Until everything is warmed back up – out of the water and dry is good enough – mobility comes later.
SCUBA SCOOP/latest dive stories: The Truth About Cold Water interesting..hey obviously it's a dive masters call but.why not make older people wait a few months till the water warms up to jump in
SCUBA SCOOP/latest dive stories: The Truth About Cold Water interesting..hey obviously it's a dive masters call but.why not make older people wait a few months till the water warms up to jump in