One more hypo thing

High hypothermia risk

Yesterday I was in sickbay, laid low by the common cold. Sinuses stogged tight, no energy etc. I had planned earlier in the week to do some practice rescues in the frigid waters here but the risk of making the cold something worse kept me on the sofa. Some of my paddling friends did make it though at the above location and it looks like they had a good day.

Anyway, so, I couldn't paddle. Luckily I recently got a stack of old Sea Kayaker magazines from Dan and I enjoyed going through them. My last bunch of posts were on the subject of hypothermia. They were based on web research I had done and were sort of me thinking out loud. I learned some new things.

Yesterday I read a letter to the Editor of Sea Kayaker magazine from the February 2001 issue dealing with the same topic. The gist of it was that a kayaker had been rescued from frigid waters. The survivor reported his rescuers kept rubbing his legs continuously which turns out, is a no-no.

Apparently, by rubbing his legs and getting circulation going in his legs there was a risk of cold surface blood going to the heart and stopping the heart. There seems to be a risk of warming up a hypothermia victim too quickly which I hadn't thought of before. There's much to learn so today I'll check that out from the comfort of my sofa and find comfort in the thought, I'll gradually recover from this cold.