[Paddlewise] Hypothermia - died in bed.

I was at my in-laws scoffing at my wife's father's scowl when I said I'd be
out paddling today in the strait, in the storm  - if it wasn't for my hand.
The young girl beside me at the dinner table, a friend of my
sister-in-law's, said her uncle had died recently of hypothermia. My in-laws
have a long list of family and friends who have died of
hypothermia/drowning, or just disappeared while fishing in Juan de Fuca. I
gulped.

Anyway, she went on to explain that her uncle was only 63. He was the former
fire chief of a large municipality on Southern Vancouver Island, and was a
fairly fit, with-it kind of guy. He apparently fell of his building's  dock
located along the inner waters of the Gorge Waterway. He crawled back out on
his own, the family assumes, but must have struggled for a bit (we had a
cold snap recently, with record lows  - just after the record highs,
dryness, and then record rainfall). He made it back into his condo, but was
found a few days later, still in some wet cloths, on his bed, dead. The
family was told he died of hypothermia. I'd never heard of such a thing.
Anyway, I shut up for the rest of the meal.

Doug Lloyd
Victoria BC
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