Doctors Say the Effect of Icy Water on Body Is Confusion

Under average circumstances, a person of average build might be able to survive for 40 minutes to an hour in icy water, such as that in Convict Lake, where seven people perished Monday.

But well before death occurred, a person would become so confused and uncoordinated that they would be unable to recognize their plight and, therefore, lose the ability to perhaps help themselves.

Physicians Wednesday did not know the exact circumstances of the deaths in the High Sierra lake because autopsies were pending. But Dr. Michael Callaham, director of emergency medicine at UC San Francisco Medical Center, said immediate death would more likely result from drowning than from hypothermia--the medical term for a fall in body temperature to below 95 degrees.

“No matter how cold the water is, it takes a while to get the body temperature down to a point--around 90 degrees--where you get confused,” Callaham said.

The general advice for those unexpectedly plunged into cold waters is to remain calm, try to huddle in groups and attempt to expend as little energy as possible, Callaham said.

Such an approach would not have been feasible for the unsuccessful rescuers on Convict Lake. In their vigorous search for victims, they are likely to have quickly depleted their energy stores, thus accelerating the fall in their own body temperatures.

Prolonged survival in frigid waters is possible. In December, 1987, an 11-year-old Minnesota boy was pulled from an icy river 45 minutes after he fell in. His body temperature was 77 degrees. Physicians considered him clinically dead but labored to save him. Two weeks later, he left the hospital.