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eight volunteers 45 degree water this is
cold water boot camp usa
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we have selected eight very hardy
volunteers from across the country to
subject them to icy cold water and teach
them how to survive an accidental cold
water immersion
okay boot campers welcome the best way
to learn about cold water immersion is
to jump right in you've got your gear go
on and get suited up and then you're all
gonna go for a swim
okay all right
i'm mark chansky from the connecticut
department of environmental protections
boating division and my job there is to
teach people
proper boating
my name is tim fullen i am from cape cod
massachusetts i am the co-owner of bad
fish outfitters a fishing outfitter on
the cape i'm jonah pike with the united
states coast guard i'm a boston mate
first class
coxswain and that means i'm a boat
driver with the coast guard i'm rachel
burkholder with the national safe
boating council
the booth campers were chosen because
they were well above average in their
knowledge and experience in boating
water safety and rescue if any group of
volunteers could be expected to do well
and beat the odds at coldwater boot camp
it would be this group
i'm mario batoni i'm a chief aviation
survival technician with the u.s coast
guard stationed at the aviation
technical training center in elizabeth
city north carolina i'm chuck eost i'm a
wildlife officer for the tennessee
wildlife resources agency my name is
ashante davis i'm in the united states
coast guard my name is victor gamboa i
work for nevada department of wildlife
and
what we normally do is patrol out on
lake mead on a patrol boat
hi i'm ted rankin and welcome to cold
water boot camp over the next half hour
we're going to show you why people die
in cold water why year after year so
many lives are lost to cold water you
see most people don't understand the
effects of cold water immersion and some
end up paying the ultimate price so pay
attention this program could save your
life
the instructor for boot camp is dr
gordon giesbrecht professor of
thermophysiology at the university of
manitoba where he runs the laboratory
for exercise and environmental medicine
and studies human responses to exercise
and work in extreme environments
dr giesbrecht is one of the world's
leading authorities on freezing to death
and believes the best way to study the
effects of cold on the human body is to
get intimate with the elements
well in my early 20s i used to make a
living as a wilderness guide and so
whether you're a whitewater rafting or
mountaineering
or many other activities hypothermia is
always a concern
so i was always interested in it and as
it turns out i didn't know a lot about
it because i went back to university and
got my undergrad and then i went in to
do my master's thesis and
i was trying to find a topic but because
of that interest i had from before
i managed to get into doing a study on
hypothermia
the number that you pick will be the
order that you
get to come down here in
so you guys need to go up and uh we'll
get you get you changed and then one at
a time come on down here we'll do our
thing
as our boot campers head to the water
here are a few cold hard facts
the 2007 study of recreational boating
accidents by the united states coast
guard found that water temperatures made
a difference in water between 70 and 79
degrees only eight percent of the
accidents were fatal while accidents in
water with a temperature of under 59
degrees more than 40 percent were fatal
that means your risk of dying in cold
water under 59 degrees is increased by
500 percent drowning statistics studied
by the life-saving society revealed that
when it came to boaters 60 drowned in
water under 50 degrees and 34 drowned in
water between 50 and 68 degrees what
makes it even more chilling is the fact
that 43 percent were less than six feet
from safety and the majority about 90
percent were not wearing a life jacket
so why don't people wear life jackets
research revealed that many said they
don't need them if they're close to
shore
some felt that they could put their life
jackets on in the water and most well
most said they didn't need one because
they can swim
well as our boot campers are about to
find out
that in this 45 degree water none of
those reasons are valid
to keep the boot campers safe during
their immersions a large contingent of
safety and rescue personnel have been
assembled and the person at the center
of the team is master chief nick suvac
commander at the coast guard station
fairport harbor in fairport ohio our
base of operations for coldwater boot
camp usa
stay back
okay
we need
you guys to do your job when it's your
time to do your job okay ashante it's a
moment of truth we're going to take on a
boat take you out to
the u.s coast guard boat there so what i
want you to do when you're ready we'll
give you instructions just jump in
and then i want you to swim towards this
boy
and if you make it that far just give a
little tag and then swim swim towards me
over here okay
and uh just basically
i want you to swim as far as you can
and there'll be a there'll be a rescue
swimmer right behind you you won't see
him but he's he's like if you say
something he can grab you immediately so
don't worry about that just focus on the
task and swim there and if you hit there
come and swim towards me i'll call you
here if you can't see where to go on the
beach okay
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okay sushi
got a couple of big gas there started
swimming right away
okay that was very good very good
very good example because she was ready
to pack it in immediately
you're ready
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and i thought i could handle it like
when you first get in like
you can't breathe like you have no
control but i think with the rescue
swimmer calling me down at some point
like your body just goes numb
so if the rescue swimmer hadn't been
there what do you think would have
happened i probably would have panicked
and then what
drowned
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it's not safe to go out
and do this at all
another guy with a crawl wow
we'll see how long the crawl lasts
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he's still going pretty strong after 20
yards
now he's trying to do the crawl and his
arms can hardly come out of the water
so tell me about your experience
first of all what happened when you
jumped in
it was cold but i knew it would be
okay and then you started swimming so i
swam and
i got about three fourths of the way
and i started getting winded
tried to
backstroke just to do something
different
try to give him a win back which it
helped some
i swallowed some water i couldn't get a
breath it's like i would try to breathe
and
i was trying to but i didn't get any air
right
so then the rescue swimmer
at that point i guess that's when he
grabbed me and
started working my way in
well without the rest without the rest i
i would have drowned yeah
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oh
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well interesting that's the slowest
start we've had
and the biggest uh
the biggest uh respiratory
response you've seen
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another attempt at the backstroke
the thing with the with the backstroke
it does buy you time but it slows you
down
sooner or later this is going to catch
up to him
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that felt forever
you it's
it's so painful to kick
like every kick is
is like uh
oh just
i just kept checking my hands to make
sure they were there
it was
horrendous
it's getting dizzy like
you look around and you don't know which
way you're looking
it's crazy
it's yeah it's crazy
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mario's doing the uh the breaststroke
so it'll be interesting to see if he
stays on his front if he'll be able to
last as long
we know that swimming on your front
takes more energy than swimming on your
back he also gets more speed but it'll
be interesting to see how this works
and mario's still breathing pretty heavy
here
and he's gone halfway
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i had better ideas than that before
he was feeling pretty good because he
was doing the breaststroke so they tried
to crawl and uh that only lasted half a
lap and
paying the price for that now takes an
awful lot of energy to do that in cold
water
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so tell us tell me about your experience
know
i felt like it took about a minute and
then i had to get over that so i
prevented late in the okay
and uh
skin starting to feel a lot different
different
from what to what
from cold to
a little number
and then after hurt
cold skin and then it hurt yeah okay
really burning kind of
pain
you don't think you could have gone much
longer no i couldn't go much i was about
to go there i thought
when you came up here i noticed you're
the only guy who's crawled all the way
up here why'd you do that you couldn't
stand there just thought that was easy
or what yeah
i didn't think i'd be able to stand up
in turn each of the boot campers had
their first cold water immersion with
the controlled conditions and calm water
all were able to survive longer during
this first swim than they might have in
a real life situation but regardless
they all failed and when they did they
were all normal thermic
after this first immersion dr giesbrecht
took them into the classroom to talk
about what they had just
experienced how's everybody doing
well you had an interesting experience
this morning and i'm just going to ask
you one question
so what just happened i just want to
hear you folks tell us uh
ashanti why don't you tell us what
happened
um my experience was
when
i first jumped in i wasn't expecting to
be in like an immediate shock and when
it happened
i lost control of concentration i
couldn't breathe um and i thought it was
gonna be like that for a long time so i
started to panic and i felt myself going
under but with the rescue diver being
there and walking me through i gained
control of my breathing and then soon
after that i just
i just took off swimming
and it was easier
go ahead victor
one of the things that i noticed is that
about 30 seconds after i started
swimming i was not able to swim anymore
all of the energy was drained because of
the cold water
and i expected to swim a lot longer but
i was not able to do it i had to resort
to just floating so
chuck why don't you tell us uh what
happened to you what would you learn
from that
i didn't make it as far as i thought i
would have and then the the reason that
i would have drowned had a rescue
guy hadn't caught me
it wasn't because i was so cold it was
because i was just out of air i couldn't
go any further when i came out of the
water i was surprised at how much
trouble i had walking on to the shore i
actually fell okay what is what what's
cold water what do you think is the
definition of uh
what temperature in below what do you
think anything below 68 degrees below 68
degrees did you see my talk here yeah so
there it is anything bull and actually
people that surprises a lot of people
they think well 68 degrees that's not
too cold but
we define that as anything where you
cannot
indefinitely defend your body
temperature so if you jumped in 65
degree water you might not feel too bad
for a while but if you had a life jacket
on you sat there for hours
eventually you would lose it so we did
this uh
survey 661 people that i've given
seminars to and before i gave them we
would hand out some simple questions and
i'll give you the responses to one
question which was
you know how long if you were wearing
winter clothing
and you fell into ice water how long
until you became hypothermic not dead
from hypothermic just hypothermic and
you can see here that um
it's pretty interesting
50 of the people said five minutes or
less
and if you go on here like if you add
that 70 percent of the people who
responded said 10 minutes or less
and the reality is as we're going to
talk about the answer is actually 30
minutes or more only if you have a life
jacket on
so
we're going to describe cold water
immersion we're going to talk about
those first three phases the first one
is the cold shock response then there's
cold incapacitation which kind of
happens within 5 to 15 minutes
and then hypothermia will only set in 30
minutes
or longer so in parallel we're going to
talk about this 110 one principle that
we developed goes like this one minute
to get your breathing under control
you have 10 minutes of meaningful
movement
and you have one hour before you become
unconscious due to hypothermia so let's
review these these uh these three
effects the first one the cold shock
response
we tell people that it lasts about a
minute
now gasping you know
we don't need to speak to that you you
get a cold blast if anything you keep
your head above water as much as you can
because if you gasp when your head's
under water you could inhale more than a
liter of water in the first gasp and
if you do that you're basically done
and
the other the other thing about
uncontrolled breathing is and and i
don't think most people think about this
but when we're running or playing games
or swimming we usually entrain our
physical movements with our breathing
pattern but now if you have uncontrolled
breathing
it makes it very difficult to control
your swimming
as we saw
a few cases earlier on
second effect cold incapacitation
we saw that a bit earlier and we're
going to see that quite a bit later on
in our next set of swimming right so the
and and it's all about
just the effect of cold on muscle and
nerve cells right muscle cells do the
action nerve cells send the signal you
make either of those cold and you're not
going to be able to perform it's pretty
you know the physiologies is complicated
but the principle is simple okay so in
water that's near freezing
incapacitation can occur within two to
ten minutes
so to review the second phase of cold
water immersion regarding cold
incapacitation consider the following
you have 10 minutes of meaningful
movement for self-rescue and once you
start to get weak you're not going to
get any stronger
so the third effect is hypothermia this
is what everybody
associates with cold water immersion so
the realities are even in ice water
it'll take one hour before you become
unconscious due to hypothermia only if
you have a life jacket on
because there's no way without a life
jacket that you can keep your head above
water long enough okay so a life jacket
really increases your chance of survival
as we all know and remember you're just
you're trying to increase your survival
time and in you know even if you can
increase it 10 minutes or an hour that
could make the difference between living
and dying so that's uh that's really it
again we have the three phases which are
cold shock cold incapacitation and
hypothermia
and all the stuff that that entails but
you have one simple principle one minute
to get your breathing under control 10
minutes of meaningful movement one hour
before you become unconscious due to
hypothermia one minute
10 minutes one hour
and if you can just remember that that's
your cue to remember a whole textbook of
cold physiology that will help you
survive well the lesson for our boot
campers is clear in order to survive an
accidental cold water immersion the
first step is to keep your airway clear
and get your breathing under control
before you do anything else if you're
able to do that first your chances of
survival will be increased and the
second is regardless of your swimming
ability the key to surviving a cold
water immersion is to have your life
jacket on before you enter the
water well our boot campers are finished
for today but tomorrow they'll be back
and we're going to be taking them all
the way to incapacitation and beyond
into hypothermia
ready one two three what the hell don't
worry we'll get you
today the campers were tasked with some
specific incapacitation tests four
volunteers headed just offshore to go
for another swim but this one was a
little different from the one before
chuck and jonah and ashante and rachel
were each asked to take a swim in pairs
one with a life jacket and one without
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when i first jumped in it was the same
as yesterday completely in shot couldn't
breathe but now that i knew to take my
time instead of just jumping in
and
swimming automatically i took my time
and i i got a hold of my breath
but
i was surprised at how difficult it was
yesterday was so much easier but today
with the wind factor
and
the the water blowing in my face it just
made it 10 times harder and i gave up a
lot faster
you're doing good rachel how are you
doing okay
second swim was much better than the
first i was wearing the life jackets the
second time and it was just night and
day between the two
it just it kind of felt warmer in the
water i felt
just more in control of everything okay
now rachel was doing very well with her
pfd in fact i just asked her and she
actually said she was okay to keep
swimming now she's getting very cold
but obviously she swam a lot further
than she or ashante would have been able
to do without a life jacket
always wear your life jacket
i was surprised that you know how
dangerous the water can be and
you can't make it without a life jacket
you drown
it's completely impossible because you
just become so exhausted
oh man these guys haven't learned their
lesson yet
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i let my head go get underwater when i
jumped in
and i knew better than that
but i did it i did it
it went under
and uh i gotta try to control my
breathing and
i think i started swimming before i did
that even though i was thinking about it
i guess i didn't do a very good job so
as you can see chuck is having a very
difficult time he can keep his head
above water but with the waves and the
cold water
basically all he's doing is staying
afloat he's not making any headway
and if you look over you can see jonah
is basically pretty nonchalant he's cold
but
there's no strain on his face whatsoever
i swam with uh chuck and
i was turning around looking at him and
looked like he was swimming for his life
and i was wearing a life jacket and i
was able to
just hold my arms close to my chest and
not use them
and i held on to that
that heat
and energy and and i wasn't worried
about keeping my head above the water
and so i just kicked my feet and i was
able to keep up with him with no problem
no matter what you think before you go
in
it's it's a it's a fight for your life
rather than it be
up to you to keep yourself afloat
you need to leave it up to the life
jacket to keep you afloat
feeling numb and
but uh
not using my arms at all and it's
it's a godsend life jackets are
are the seat belts of of the water
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the remaining four campers stayed closer
to shore and were tasked to perform
several tests their jobs were simple
ones like tuning and calling on a vhf
radio deploying a signal flare and
trying to report a vessel
but as time went on those tasks became
less simple and after a short time in
the water you could clearly see that
they became slower and more belabored
that's going a little slower
the only reason why i'm still floating
is because i got this life jacket i was
doing stuff out there today uh in the
water that that if i hadn't been wearing
a life jacket there's no way i could
have done to save myself
um to get into the help position that
would have been impossible
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and certainly having a life jacket on
too took away that whole
extra part of drowning i mean didn't
have to worry about that you know what i
mean i was just just had to relax and
just take the cold and grin and bear you
know
wear your life jacket all the time you
never know if you're going to end up in
the water
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live jackets saves lives
my experience in the cold water
environment these last couple of days
there's no doubt in my mind that wearing
a life jacket is going to increase your
chances of survival having a life jacket
is going to mean a world of difference
it's going to save your life essentially
and i really believe that
just the the peace of mind you have and
an ability to to sit back relax and be
afloat and not have to struggle to be
afloat is amazing
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give it a shot
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tim and victor were removed from the
water but mario and mark stayed in
longer much longer to take them into
mild hypothermia along the way their
core temperatures were measured and
interestingly both experienced an
increase in the beginning before the
cold water started to cause their
temperatures to drop okay so in 20
minutes you've gone from 100.5 to 99.2
you drop the degree at 1.2
and then you dropped another degree in
the last 10 minutes
if i didn't have a life jacket i don't i
don't know that i'd have made it much
past that
five or six minute mark certainly i
would have drowned i was thinking about
that as i had to pull myself over to the
boat
to get to get my temperature read the
second time after 20 minutes and i it
was hard to pull myself to the boat
along the rope
with the pfd on mark stayed in for 53
minutes and mario for 59 although they
were incapacitated by the cold they were
only clinically mildly hypothermic with
two to three degree drops in core
temperatures and they could have stayed
in for a much longer time before
becoming unconscious
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certainly
life jackets are critical
life jackets are everything you know i i
can bring back and take the the people
that have those arguments well the life
jackets are expensive or they're
uncomfortable or there's all these
reasons not to wear them
and some of them are some of the
auto-inflating ones that are comfortable
enough to wear while you're fishing or
having a good time recreating
are expensive but they seem a lot
cheaper in the water
you know once you get in there you're
not going to be thinking about how much
that thing cost you're just going to be
glad you have it
this is a very interesting weekend
because even in water at 45 to 47
degrees fahrenheit we were able to see
all three phases of cold water immersion
just about everybody had a cold shock
response lots of gasping and
hyperventilation which in a couple of
cases made it very difficult to swim
pretty well all of them on one day or
the other had cold incapacitation and
were not able to swim so they went to
swim failure we even took a couple of
guys to hypothermia although that took
quite a while in that water and that
just proves the point the life jacket is
absolutely necessary to get past those
first two phases and survive long enough
to be rescued
when it comes to cold water preparation
and prevention are the keys try to
prevent yourself from falling in cold
water and prepare in case you do with
simple things like having a plan of how
to rescue yourself or how to call for
help
knowing what to do in those first few
critical minutes can make the difference
between you becoming a statistic or a
survivor and regardless of your age
fitness level or ability to swim the
best way to stay safe on the water any
water is to simply wear your life jacket