Fainting, hypothermia

The other night, I almost passed out in an undergraduate bar. It was very embarrassing. I had consumed about half of an alcoholic beverage when I began to feel swirly and swarmy and friends insisted I sit down. I chugged water, someone ordered me fries and I gripped Annie's hand hard. For what seemed like minutes I felt as though I were in a liminal space. I have fainted once (that was also in a bar, and that time I had also hardly had anything to drink) and I recognized every sensation, like something ghostly and whirling was luring me. I could tell I was very close. I don't even like to think about it too much because I'm afraid I'll re-experience that weakened sensation of falling, weaving and almost letting go, a feeling like I am slipping out of my body and not in a good way. As I sat there eating my fries, trying to hang on I knew: I'm about to pass out. I couldn't hear what people were saying to me, my senses were dulled, and at least one conversation happened during this time period that I have no memory of. I felt like I was inside of a vortex and all I could hear, it seemed, was the sound of sucking air. But the complex of unpleasant sensations eventually subsided and I was "back to normal." I've since been to the doctor and I think low blood sugar was likely the culprit, too much pumpkin mousse and not enough real food and then half a Strongbow. After the near-fainting episode I felt as though I had been hit by a freight train, and slept ten hours. The next day I couldn't stop thinking about the experience, the physical sensations that felt so overwhelming, specific and unique to me and what it meant, to me, that I experienced that. When really, it was just my brain freaking because I hadn't eaten properly. It didn't have anything to do with me. It just had to do with me experiencing life inside a human body. My body is perhaps more sensitive than some people's, but it's a human body and the same rules apply to everyone.

Then, I was reading this description of hypothermia from the book "Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places." It reminded me again that so much of what I take for an experience of "me" is just biology. It also reminds me how dependent we are on physiology and how much we are screwed in the face of wind chills of minus forty degrees. I like to think that if I were getting hypothermic, surely I could overcome it. I have a strong will to live, I would pull through. But I wouldn't. If my core temperature dropped below ninety degrees, I would be hosed. It's weird to think about that. Here's the passage I read on hypothermia:





Never mistake frostbite for hypothermia. Frostbite freezes extremities, while hypothermia cools the body's interior. Humans function best at a core temperature of just under ninety-nine degrees. At wind chills of minus forty degrees, with serviceable clothing, it is reasonable to expect the core temperature to drop at something like one degree every thirty minutes. When the core drops to ninety-five, significant symptoms appear. People shiver uncontrollably. They become argumentative. They feel detached from their surroundings. As their minds slow, they become what winter travelers sometimes refer to as "cold stupid." They become sleepy.

A thirteen-year-old boy who survived a ... blizzard later recounted his experience. "I felt sleepy," he said. "I thought if I could only lie down for a few minutes I would be all right. But I had heard the farmers tell stories about lying down and never getting up again in snow storms. So I kept on, but I finally got to the point where I could hardly lift my feet anymore.

At a core temperature of about ninety-three degrees, amnesia complicates things. Do we turn right or left? Did I put that glove in my pocket? Have I been here before?

At ninety-one degrees apathy settles in. Muscles by now are stiff and nonresponsive. If one continues moving at all, one begins to stagger.

When the core temperature reaches ninety degrees, the body's ability to fight the cold diminishes, and the core temperature tumbles downward. The heart itself becomes sluggish. Blood thickens. Lactic and pyruvic acids build up in tissues, further slowing the heartbeat.

It is possible to survive core temperatures as low as eighty-seven degrees, but only with rescue and rewarming. At this temperature self-rescue is almost impossible. Hallucinations are common. The mind imagines warm food and dry sleeping bags. The ears might hear music. A survivor might report looking down from above on his own struggling body, or he might remember strolling away from this own prone carcass in the snow. Victims at this point have crossed the line between cold stupid and what is sometimes called "cold crazy."

Just shy of death, victims may experience a burning sensation in the skin. This may be a delusion, or it may be caused by a sudden surge of blood from the core reaching the colder extremities. The last act of many victims is the removal of their clothes -- the ripping away of collars, the disposal of hats. Doctors sometimes call this "paradoxical undressing."

A Nebraska newspaper explained why some victims of ... a blizzard were missing clothes. "At this stage of freezing, strange symptoms often appear: as the blood retires from the surface it congests in the heart and brain; then delirium comes on and with it a delusive sensation of smothering heat. The victim's last exertions are to throw off his clothes and remove all wrappings from his throat; often the corpse is found with neck completely bare and in an attitude indicating that his last struggles were for fresh air."

image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robbn1/4293432234/