In a message dated 98-11-06 18:39:56 EST, dmccarty_at_us.ibm.com writes: << Seems like I have gone full circle here! Maybe waiting is the thing to do. But if conditions are not going to improve or they are going to get worse, then there is nothing to do but get the victim ashore knowing that things are bad and are going to get worse for the ColdOne and maybe others. >> Roger your last, Dan. One thing we can be pretty sure about is that things are not going to get better, especially not for the victim. You don't stabilize a hypothermia victim's core temperature by keeping him in his boat; unless you take active rewarming measures, he's going to continue to sink into full hypothermia, become unconscious, and he will die. We don't have much time to wait for conditions to change. We don't have a lot of time at all. Other paddlers will get wet and cold; some could be hurt on landing; the victim will not have a pleasant ride into shore regardless of all efforts. There's a pretty strong consensus running --- at least from my read of the posts --- that we'll have to get someone to swim him in. Unless the surf is very light, the idea of carrying him in on an afterdeck is sketchy at best in my opinion. If he were to be washed off the deck or lose his grip --- and there's really good potential for that, even if he were not hypothermic --- we might lose him somewhere in the impact zone. Lose him as in <lose> him! Rafting or towing is not an option in surf. Our boats are lethal weapons in the surf zone, with or without a paddler. This shouldn't be a depressing thread. Some of us have been involved in less dramatic but still scary scenarios like this. It's a challenging thread specifically because it could easily be real --- and it could be us. What would we do --- and what would we do differently? Again, thanks, Julio. Jack Martin *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Nov 06 1998 - 18:53:55 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:01 PDT