Cold Water

[kermit911]

Don't know if this is true or not but I heard if you are going to fall into Ice cold water, exaple "Titanic" It is beater to go head first, so that your body can prepair itself faster for the temp, and you have a better chance of surviving. Any idea?

[Peter Pedant]

If you are going to go into ice cold water the median survival time is I think - three minutes.

The Titanic passengers filled the air with their screams as they died as they werent drowning but dying from cold immersion.

There have been survivors of cold immersion - an Icelandic seaman - and they got one and dumped him in a cold bath in a lab -and guess what?? he didnt die but his core temperature plummeted to a level where he should have. Written up in the new england journal in the seventies

[jake-the-peg]

Survival time in ice cold water can be significantly longer than 3 minutes due to the mamalian diving reflex.

I think about 1 in 4 have this and it is triggered by the submergence of the face in cold water, it slows the heart and metabolism.

I have found a reference to a maximum survival time of 66 minutes http://www.perfusion.ca/categ/ah3.html

There is no attributation to this link so I do have a horrible sense of deja vu regarding the previous thread on Mengele

[stevie21]

If you're going to fall into cold water then surely the time difference between your head being in the water and the rest of you is so little that it negates any benefit?