4 Die of Exposure After Army Training Exercise : Military: Soldiers in bridge-building drill worked in chest-high, chilly swamp waters in Florida.

Four U.S. Army soldiers in the final days of grueling training died from exposure after emerging from the chilly, chest-high waters of a north Florida swamp where they were engaged in a bridge-building exercise, the Army said Thursday.

The deaths late Wednesday on the grounds of Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle stunned members of the elite ranger corps and prompted an Army inquiry.

“It’s a shock. No one likes to see something like this occur,” said Al Blanchard, a retired Army colonel serving as a military spokesman at Ft. Benning, Ga., where the dead men had been based. “We are a tight-knit community, and we will pull together and take care of our own.”

The names of the dead were not immediately released. Four other soldiers suffering from hypothermia were hospitalized.

An Army spokeswoman said the victims were among 102 enlisted men and officers who had volunteered for a demanding eight-week course in combat techniques and all-terrain survival. Women are not admitted to ranger training, the spokeswoman said.

The men, who reportedly had been in the field since Saturday, were patrolling in the hardwood swamps on the 724-square-mile military reservation when, late Wednesday afternoon, one platoon was instructed to build a bridge, Blanchard said.

About 5:30 p.m. one of the four instructors assigned to each 34-member platoon noticed that one man who had been in the water was showing signs of hypothermia, a severe loss of body heat. By the time a helicopter arrived to evacuate him, several others began to show symptoms, Blanchard said.

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Two of the men were flown out of the swamp. But low clouds and fog prevented air rescue of the other victims, most of whom either walked or were carried to a point where they could be picked up by ambulance, Blanchard said.

Seven men were taken to a base clinic, where three died Wednesday. The body of an eighth man was found early Thursday.

“Ranger training is physically and mentally demanding,” said Blanchard, a former ranger. “They are on short rations, and not a lot of sleep. It’s not unusual for the individual to keep going on sheer guts.”

In earlier phases of the ranger course, volunteers trained in the woods at Ft. Benning, in desert conditions at Ft. Bliss, Tex., and in mountains near Dahlonega, Ga.

Blanchard suggested that recent heavy rains in the area may have caused water in the swamp to be deeper and colder than normal. “When a person is submerged in water, over time hypothermia will set in,” he said.