This is the case I mentioned last Sunday. I appreciate your more complete report of what happened to Dr. Zella. White water kayakers have an advantage over other paddlers because they MUST train from the outset to stop breathing when they capsize by accident. That is a learned response. Coastal kayakers that have taken part in wet exit training, rescues, rolling etc and who have been hammered from time to time also develop this type of response to surprize capsize. New kayakers or paddlers outside the paddling club (or equivalent) network have had no training and often become convinced, after many uneventful days on the water, that they will never capsize, and besides... "They can swim!" When that capsize comes unexpected, the surprize and coldness of just mildly cold water often causes them to inhale. This has nothing to do with hypthermia and may not even be cold enough to be called cold shock. None-the-less, just one inhalation under water is enough to cause drowning. What witnesses usually report is seeing the victim struggling at the surface for a few seconds or minutes before the victim disappears, which happens when lung function fails. In colder water, heart failure sometimes occurs, but seems unlikely here. Swimming failure due to numbing of the limbs in cold water also seems unlikely since the water wasn't all that cold. If you follow cases in which witnesses report what they saw, this type of sequence will appear over and over again. It was exactly the case that happened to Robert Beauvaise that I described in Seakayaker a few years back. Chuck Sutherland Subject: Search called off Date sent: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 19:39:19 4 I note that the search for kayaker Hamilton Wood, off the NH coast, has been called off. ----------------- In the course of searching for information on that accident, I found another case that happened in Seabrook,TX on about Feb 21. Kayaker Dr Stephen Zella was lost in Clear Lake Park. After a massive week-long search, his body was recovered on about Feb 26. Google search will bring up the accident. Chuck Sutherland *************************************************************************** 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/ ***************************************************************************
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