Dear Joan,

Just a line to say how useful I found The Immersion Casualty by Peter in the last issue. We hear about hypothermia in our First Aid lectures and learn all the usual facts, figures and symptoms about gradual body cooling, but we don't often see detailed information about the body reaction of instantly hitting cold water. I experienced this myself a few years ago and I can vouch for the truth of the listed reactions in Peter's list. I was so surprised to find myself so paralysed that I jotted down the experience to record it; printed elsewhere in this Bulletin. It might serve as a warning to others?

More recently, in a television programme on the subject, I was interested to hear that the body can be 'educated' to drastically reduce the effects of Cold Shock by being immersed in cold water in controlled conditions (the bath!) just twice in a month. So, if you suspect that you might be about to run the risk of potential immersion at any time, take a few cold showers prior to the event to improve your chances of survival.

Paul Constantine

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Joan,

That cold water kills, as Peter Bick's report, Bulletin 170, describes, is certainly true. But that cannot be the whole story. I grew up at the seaside and many a time I was in the cold summer sea longer than I should have been hypothermatised according to the figures quoted by Peter. When young, my wife had a life-saving medal and swam miles in the cold summer sea off Margate. Then, how do cross-Channel swimmers survive? Maybe there is a qualifying factor here, namely, whether one is in the cold sea by choice or by accident. If the former, one may survive a fair while subject to factors such as cramp, or being swept off-shore, or away from an anchored boat by a current faster than one can swim. I refer here only to home waters and not, of course, to more arctic ones.

One further point: recent Bulletins have been somewhat preoccupied with the dangers of going afloat in small craft. In my thirty-odd years of DCA membership I can recall no case reported of our having lost a member by a mishap while afloat.

Gerald Levenson

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Joan,

Peter Bick gives us one more reason for not capsizing - cold shock. I was rather pleased to read his article because it ties in with my experience of capsizing which I had always put down to my being nesh. I have often wondered whether you can accustom yourself to cold. In the case of hypothermia I suppose you can't but why didn't Shackleton's men get it or the dory men on the Grand Banks. Some of the latter did - mortality was high - but Howard Blackburn managed to clamp his frost bitten hands to the oars and row for five days (and nights). He lost all his fingers but didn't get hypothermia.

Winter swimmers plunge into cold water without experiencing the effects of cold shock. Their bodies have adapted to it. A recent TV program suggested that taking cold showers will also help. I suggest a condition of DCA membership should be the regular taking of cold showers. Obviously clothing makes a difference. I have a wet suit but feel a dry suit would be better. Could we please have an article on choosing clothing? And should I wear a toupee to reduce heat loss from a bald head? And where do you get splash screens? Perhaps I should wear a motor cycle crash helmet - my son always did knowing my penchant for unannounced gybes.

Oh for the days of innocence when we sailed in ex-WD khaki shorts and only cissies wore a Mae West. Peter Francis

PS. Peter tells me he always wore white ex-RN shorts. There's swank for you!