No One Should Die of Hypothermia

If you watch the local or national news from time to time it would have been hard to miss the story of missing Country Western singer Craig Strickland, who was missing for over a week, until he was found dead, of Hypothermia.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol Marine Enforcement Division found the country singer’s body in Bear Creek Cove on Monday, over a week after Strickland went missing during a duck hunting trip. The 29-year-old’s wife, Helen, says in a new post that he died of hypothermia.

“The night of the accident he had fought his way out of the water and up a hill before the stages of hypothermia set in,” she wrote on Instagram. “He experienced no pain in his final moments and simply felt like he was falling asleep.”

According to the Mayo Clinic - Hypothermia is a medical emergency that occurs when your body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature. Normal body temperature is around 98.6 F (37 C). Hypothermia occurs as your body temperature passes below 95 F (35 C).

When your body temperature drops, your heart, nervous system and other organs can't work normally. Left untreated, hypothermia can eventually lead to complete failure of your heart and respiratory system and to death.

Hypothermia is most often caused by exposure to cold weather or immersion in a cold body of water. Primary treatments for hypothermia are methods to warm the body back to a normal temperature.

In other words Be Able to Build A Fire!

How hard would it be to carry a water proof container with a lighter, some greased cotton balls, dyer lint, water proof matches and/or a fire striker? In fact, if you are out on the water or are leaving your survival camp during a rain or threat of thunderstorm, why not pre-build your fire pit and have kindling and wood collected and ready so if you became submersed or drenched you could much quicker build a fire to warm up and dry out. 

Stay Prepared! Stay Alive!

Charlie

Snow As A Source Of Survival Water

When the desert sees its share of snow, it does not usually last very long. As seen in the video, we received 6 1/2 inches of snow in one day. In 4 days all the snow had mostly melted away with the exception of the mountain areas. This was in Southern New Mexico, where 3 inches around this time of year is average.

Snow melts more slower in shadowy areas, like the north side of the sand dunes as seen in the video where the sun does not get to at this time of year.

The snow can be melted and drank as is if it was taken from a clean area of the ground. There is caution given about eating snow without first melting it. The caution being that doing so would lower your body core temperature making you more prone to hypothermia.

If the weather is warm and you need to hydrate, consuming small amounts of un-melted snow should not be a large factor.

In the video I gave a demonstration about how much water you would get if you melted the snow first. In this demonstration the snow was semi-wet and compacted very well. A one gallon plastic bag produced about a half gallon of water. Had the snow been more powdery and harder to compact, it would produce even less. Heating the snow in a fire would cause even more of the liquid to evaporate.

Water can still be found if all the ground snow was gone and the ground was still moist. As shown in the above picture and as demonstrated in the video, you can dig below ground and have a good chance of getting enough water to drink.

Stay Prepared! Stay Alive!

Charlie