50 Fun Facts About Hypothermia

Hypothermia is medically defined as a core body temperature below what?

Normal core temperature sits around 36.5 to 37.5 °C; the word comes from Greek roots meaning 'under' and 'heat'.

Which symptom is present in mild hypothermia but typically stops once hypothermia becomes moderate?

Its disappearance is a warning sign, not a recovery: the body is running out of the energy needed to generate heat.

What is the opposite of hypothermia called?

Both words share the Greek thérmē, meaning heat; hyper means over and hypo means under.

Roughly what share of hypothermia deaths involve 'paradoxical undressing'?

One theory is that exhausted blood-vessel muscles relax, flooding the extremities with warm blood and making the victim feel hot.

'Terminal burrowing', or hide-and-die syndrome, has late-stage hypothermia victims doing what?

German researchers likened it to the burrowing behaviour of hibernating mammals; victims are found under beds or behind wardrobes.

A two-year-old from which country survived accidental hypothermia at 12.7 °C, one of the lowest temperatures ever?

Cold water slows the metabolism so much that children revived from near-freezing water can recover even after an hour without a pulse.

Alcohol raises hypothermia risk partly by causing what effect in the skin's blood vessels?

Widened vessels dump heat to the environment while making the drinker feel warm; between a third and three-quarters of cases involve alcohol.

The Coast Guard's '50/50/50 rule' says survival odds in 50 °F water for 50 minutes rise 50 percent if wearing what?

The heat escape lessening position, hugging the knees to the chest, also stretches survival time in cold water.

Most people who entered the water when the Titanic sank died within roughly what span?

The sea was about −2 °C; second officer Lightoller compared the shock to a thousand knives.

Plunged into freezing seas, about one in five victims dies almost immediately from what?

Uncontrolled gasping draws in water and blood pressure spikes; true loss of core temperature takes far longer.

What percentage of body heat is lost through the skin, as opposed to the lungs?

Heat is made mainly in the muscles and liver; a trained endurance athlete can generate over 1,200 watts.

The classic ECG sign of hypothermia is named after which letter?

It can mimic a heart attack, but clot-busting drugs would only worsen the bleeding tendency cold causes.

How does heat loss through an adult's uncovered head compare with other uncovered body parts?

Infants are the exception because their heads are so large relative to their bodies.

Which fabric is singled out as inferior for preventing hypothermia because it insulates poorly when wet?

Hikers call it 'death cloth'; synthetics wick sweat away and wool keeps insulating when damp.

Which of these does the UK National Health Service specifically warn against for a hypothermic person?

Hot baths, limb massage, heating pads and alcohol can all trigger a blood-pressure crash and cardiac arrest.

'Not dead until warm and dead' means resuscitating hypothermia victims until at least what temperature?

Survival with normal brain function has followed more than six hours of CPR.

Which blood test result is treated as a sign that resuscitating a hypothermic patient is futile?

An avalanche burial over 35 minutes with a mouth packed with snow is another accepted reason to stop.

In deep hypothermic circulatory arrest, surgeons cool the brain to as low as what temperature?

The technique is used for aneurysms and other repairs that cannot tolerate blood flow.

Which ancient general lost nearly half his men to cold during the Second Punic War?

The crossing of the Alps in 218 BC is the earliest of the many military campaigns cold has helped decide.

Which microscopic animals survive freezing by replacing most of their internal water with trehalose?

Also called water bears, they avoid the ice crystals that shred cell membranes.

Which Antarctic explorer recorded his team's temperatures 'below 94.2°, which spells death at home'?

Those were probably oral readings, corresponding to mild hypothermia; one of Scott's men, Atkinson, became confused by cold.

Anna Bågenholm survived a 1999 accident with a body temperature of 13.7 °C after being under ice for how long?

She found an air pocket and stayed conscious for 40 minutes before her heart stopped; a Tromsø team of over 100 staff worked nine hours to revive her.

Anna Bågenholm was skiing near Narvik in which country when she fell through the ice?

The Swedish doctor was doing her residency at Narvik Hospital and later returned to work as a radiologist at the Tromsø hospital that saved her.

Erika Nordby, Canada's 'Miracle Baby', was revived in 2001 after how long without a heartbeat?

The 13-month-old had wandered out of an Edmonton house nearly naked at −24 °C; her heart restarted under a warming blanket.

Japanese hiker Mitsutaka Uchikoshi survived how many days without food or water in 2006?

Doctors suggested he had slipped into a hibernation-like state, a phenomenon that has since been researched for medical use.

In 'targeted temperature management' for cardiac-arrest survivors, the target is often set between what?

Newer research suggests the benefit may simply come from preventing fever, and cooling children after arrest does not appear to help.

Cooling caps are used during chemotherapy to prevent which side effect?

The same cooling principle protects newborn brains after birth asphyxia.

Frostbite was first formally described in 1813 by Dominique Jean Larrey, a physician in whose army?

He observed the injuries during the retreat from Russia, the first documented mass cold-injury event.

Researchers found the oldest evidence of frostbite in humans, about 5,000 years old, in what?

The most commonly affected age group today is 30 to 50 year olds.

The surgical adage 'Frozen in January, amputate in July' means doing what with frostbitten tissue?

Dead tissue often self-amputates after about two months, so surgeons delay unless gangrene or sepsis sets in.

Which Titanic junior wireless operator got severe frostbite standing for hours on an overturned lifeboat?

Captain Lawrence Oates, of Scott's Antarctic party, is another famous case listed among the condition's notable victims.

In water below 15 °C, the cold shock reflex cuts breath-holding from a minute or more to what?

That involuntary gasp is why so many cold-water drownings happen in the first minute.

Trench foot differs from frostbite in that it usually occurs at what kind of temperature?

It is a non-freezing cold injury caused by prolonged damp; advanced cases with fungal infection are nicknamed jungle rot.

By the winter of 1917–18, British soldiers reduced trench foot partly by greasing their feet with what?

Improved trenches and modified footwear did the rest of the work.

Which North American amphibian survives winter with up to 70 percent of its body water frozen solid?

It floods its cells with glucose and urea as antifreeze and is the only North American frog found north of the Arctic Circle.

Hibernating Arctic ground squirrels have been recorded with abdominal temperatures as low as what?

They hold sub-zero body temperatures for over three weeks while keeping the head and neck at or above 0 °C.

The first primate found to hibernate is a dwarf lemur from where?

How well its tree hole is insulated decides whether its body temperature tracks the outside air or stays steady.

Fish antifreeze proteins grown in yeast are added by Unilever to some American what?

They allow dense, creamy, lower-fat ice cream with fewer additives.

The reflective 'space blanket' handed to marathon finishers was first developed in 1964 by whom?

Its Marshall Space Flight Center made the metallised plastic film for the space programme.

Paul Siple and Charles Passel developed the first wind chill formulas while working where?

The US National Weather Service made their tables public by the 1970s; a revised index arrived in 2001.

Babies and small children make heat without muscle tremor by burning which tissue to make heat?

Norepinephrine triggers lipases in the fat to break it down; children have far more of it than adults.

Minard's 1812 retreat infographic records temperatures of 30 below zero on which scale?

That is about −38 °C; the chart shows most losses actually came in the summer advance, from disease and poor supply.

Whose short story 'To Build a Fire' depicts a man succumbing to cold in the Yukon?

He wrote two versions of the story; Hans Christian Andersen's Little Match Girl is another famous fictional case.

Roughly half of US hypothermia deaths reported between 1999 and 2002 were people aged what?

Most deaths were not work related and about a quarter happened at home.

Chilblains are caused by repeated exposure of the skin to temperatures that are what?

The damage to small blood vessels is permanent, so the itchy red patches on fingers, toes and ears return with each exposure.

Hypothermia causes at least how many deaths a year in the United States?

It is more common in older people and in males, and severe cases can leave a heart rate in the 30s.

Which technique is recommended for rewarming a person with severe hypothermia?

Mild cases need only warm drinks, clothing and movement, while moderate cases call for heating blankets and warmed IV fluids.

The Swiss staging system classifies hypothermia according to what?

It is preferred when an accurate core temperature cannot be measured; the other system grades severity by temperature alone.

In hypothermia treatment, what does 'afterdrop' refer to?

It was seen in laboratory experiments and once raised fears about external rewarming, though recent studies have not backed those concerns.

At a core temperature of 28 °C, roughly what heart rate would be expected?

By then reflexes are often gone, pupils fixed and dilated, and shivering usually absent.