Hi Chuck, I've been following your discussions on the dangers of cold-water immersion for quite a while now. I've often thought that it would be very educational to have a simple computer program that could predict functional times (time that tasks can still be performed) and survival times for immersed people given a few simple inputs like water temperature, air temperature, body characteristics, clothing type, wind speed and sea state. This would allow people to safely explore the choices and potential consequences on their own for their own unique circumstances. The kind of questions I'm thinking people would want answered might be: How much longer could I survive in 48 degree water, if I wore a wetsuit rather than jeans and a jacket? How much more dangerous is 50 degree water than 60 degree water? I'm much larger than my wife...how does she need to dress in order to have the same protection from hypothermia that my beer-belly gives me? I located a tool called PSDA that the Coast Guard is apparently using in SAR operations that sounds quite comprehensive - but I have not located anybody distributing it. Also, it has more flexibility than I am looking for since it handles dehydration and non-submerged hypothermia as well. A final issue with PSDA is that the survival times it produces are on the large end of the spectrum, since they don't want to stop a SAR operation until all hope is lost. I would prefer average or even pessimistic survival times since my goal is to convince people to prepare properly. I bought the technical report that describes PSDA but was disappointed to find that it does not describe the model in sufficient detail to be useful. I'm curious to hear if you know of such a tool. If not, do you think a tool like that would be useful? And finally, have you located any research that models the hypothermia process in humans with sufficient detail to be useful in such a tool? Thanks for any help you can give and keep up the great work! Mark G. *************************************************************************** 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 Thu Feb 17 2011 - 15:20:13 PST
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