With the recent rash of snowmobile-related deaths in Canada since the beginning of January, an expert on hypothermia is offering advice on how to survive a crash through the ice.
About 10 per cent of snowmobile deaths are water-related and occur most often when a snowmobiler crashes through a pond or lake whose ice has thinned and can't hold the weight of their snow machine.
Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht says when that happens, it takes the right kind of knowledge to ensure survival.
Giesbrecht is a physiologist and director of the University of Manitoba's Laboratory for Exercise and Environmental Medicine. "Professor Popsicle" as he's been nicknamed, has intensively studied how the body reacts to ice water by using his own body as a subject. He's lowered his body temperature to the hypothermia threshold about three dozen times.
He told Canada AM Monday that someone who has fallen into a frozen lake likely has more time to rescue themselves than they may think.
"Most people have a completely wrong conception about what happens if you go in ice water. They think that you'll become hypothermic within minutes. And this actually causes people to panic and make bad decisions and make a bad situation worse.
"Really, when you're wearing winter clothing, like you would be on a snowmobile, the average person will have between half an hour to 45 minutes before they actually become clinically hypothermic."
He says the first step to survival is not to panic during those initial seconds when you hit the cold water. Not easy to accomplish, he admits, but one that could spell life or death.
"There are three kind of phases in cold water. The first is a cold shock response where you gasp and hyperventilate and that doesn't last more than a minute or so if you don't panic," he says.
"If you ever end up in cold water, know that you're not going to die of hypothermia within minutes, so don't panic. Keep your wits about you. Get your breathing under control."
The next phase is called cold incapacitation, the 10 minutes when your muscle and nerve fibres start to stiffen from the cold. That's the most important time to find a way to rescue yourself, because after that time, you won't be able to move easily and hypothermia will begin.
"So we actually have a slogan called the 1-10-1 principle," explains Giesbrecht. "One minute to get your breathing under control and 10 minutes of meaningful movement. And then it's up to one hour before you actually become unconscious due to hypothermia."
The next step to survival is knowing how to get out of the water efficiently. He says most people try to use their arms to boost their bodies out of the water and onto the ice. But he says that method is very difficult, especially when you're weighed down by waterlogged clothes and boots.
"What we tell people is just think about kick and pull. Put your arms up on the ice and kick your legs until your body becomes horizontal, near the surface of the water. And it's actually as simple as that. You just kick your legs and you'll end up coming up like that and then you kick and pull yourself horizontally up on the ice. It's much easier.
Then you need to roll yourself away from the hole and crawl over to where the ice is thicker or over to the shore, if you can. He says don't even attempt to stand up and walk, because you won't be able to do it.
He concedes that it's difficult to remember these tips when you find yourself in this experience, but the trick is to stay calm.
"Understand that it's a terrible experience. It's very cold, terrifying," he says. "But you have a long time before you would actually become medically unfit due to cold."
