> younger, warmer-blooded As a side light, I had the misfortune to learn this is actually not true. I distant cousin of mine (strapping 16 yo) drowned just swimming off the Oregon coast last year. When I looked into the matter, it turns out that this population is at very high risk of drowning in cold water. 1. They have very little fat so that they are not buoyant (By the way this is the major difference between the sinkers and the floaters in the population) 2. They therefore need to keep swimming vigorously to stay above water. With all that healthy young muscle and great blood flow running under the skin, they lose heat very fast. 3. Apparently, the transition to non-functioning muscle can occur very fast and a good young swimmer drowns. A classic scenario is a bunch of healthy kids jump into very cold water with a challenge like "Lets swim across this mountain lake" or "Lets swim out to that buoy and back" They are manly so the fact that it is cold and unpleasant is overcome by mental fortitude. One says "I feeling a little tired, I think I'll turn back" His companions look back to check on him in a little while and he is gone. ----- I have been around water a lot in my life and we have this summer house on the Oregon coast since I was a kid and I was never really aware of this phenomena. My cousin and his friend were on the beach on a sunny day with lots of people strolling around. My cousin just spontaneously said, I think I will go in for a swim. His friend decided just to stay on the beach and read a book. He looks up some time later and my cousin is just gone. On that same beach, a healthy thirty year old father that same year just drowned while swimming with his kids. They got pulled out a little bit by an undertow. The kids swam in but the father simply did not make it. It was over in a startlingly short time. Just so you do not get discouraged, I have also seen the converse. At this same beach, one summer a kid got out quite far and started calling for help. The Coast Guard got called and they mustered a boat from a river 8 miles away and still managed to get there in time to save that kid. Lifejackets GREATLY prolong the survival time in these cases. They are not dying from hypothermia per say (cardiac arrest) but rather dying because their muscles don't work and they drown. When I was a kid, we used to swim out to islands etc in cold water. We were certainly good enough swimmers to make the distance. Now I have told my kids not to do it. Life just changes your perspectives. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Apr 26 2002 - 06:05:42 PDT
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