Wilderness Survival Guide 49 www.adventuresmart.ca Cold Injuries With an average body temperature of 37°C (98.6°F), cooler temperatures found in the outdoors can expose you to cold injuries, make pain, thirst and hunger seem worse, and sap your ability to think and your will to go on. Factors contributing to such cold injuries as exposure and frostbite are: • Dampness and temperature of your environment • Wind velocity • Age, size and physical condition • Degree of protection your outer clothing and a shelter can provide Exposure Exposure, the common term for hypothermia, is the lowering of your body’s temperature due to cold external temperatures or wind-chill, which is the combination of air temperature and wind velocity. The effects of either can be dramatically increased if you become wet. Hypothermia is a year-round threat, as the forest is always cooler than your body and the slightest breeze will cool your skin and remove much needed moisture. That is just how a fan cools you in the summer. A body temperature of 34 or 35°C (about 93.2 to 95°F), which is the temperature of a very hot day, represents the transition from mild to moderate hypothermia. Your body will attempt to conserve heat by drawing it away from your extremities to protect your vital organs. You will begin to shiver intensely, slur your speech, feel exhausted and sleepy, be clumsy and unable to walk a 9m (30 ft) line properly – the best self field test for early hypothermia. Worse yet, your ability to reason will deteriorate. Shivering, which is a rapid uncontrollable muscle movement, is your body’s automatic method of heat creation that causes the muscles to “burn” (metabolize) blood sugar to produce internal heat, thus warming your body’s core. Unfortunately, shivering uses up your body’s stores of “fuel”, just as any other work does. It is better to use your limited blood sugar to work towards getting into shelter, rather than counting on shivering to warm you. When you stop shivering from exposure, you are either adequately warm or so hypothermic that your body function has been severely impaired. This occurs at about 32°C (about 90°F) and means you are well on your way to death! COLD INJURIES continued...
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