I attended a meeting recently here in Manhattan at the
New York Kayak Company to learn a bit about the effects of hypothermia. The
discussion was led by Jim Tsung, MD, who had many interesting things to say about the effects of cold water on the
human body. Probably the most interesting take-away was that survivability probabilities in cold water (say, less than
50 degrees) is actually quite a bit higher than I had thought. When I was paddling in Alaska a few years ago, our guide
said that if you fell in the water, you’d only have a few minutes to survive before hypothermia set in and you sank
like Leo DiCaprio in the movie Titanic. Not so. While survival times differ depending on your level of fat content and
your individual will to survive, you can actually last much longer…sometimes over an hour or more, even in very cold
water. I found this fascinating. An article here on
hypothermia confirms Tsung’s comments. The site also gives numerous useful tips on how to better your chances for
survival, including how to huddle with others to conserve bodily warmth and how to administer first aid to someone who
is hyperthermic. Worth checking out as we enter the cold water paddling season.