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Hypothermia
Wed Jan 22, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Exposure to weather, the cold and wind, can literally draw heat out of your body. Doctors call
this hypothermia, the lowering of the body's core temperature.
Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook.
Dr. Murray Hamlet, former Director of the Army's Cold Research Division, explains how people
cool down.
MH: You're shutting off the radiators, that is the blood supply in your skin, and you start
distal on your feet and your hands and you slowly shut down the blood flow to these areas,
trying to conserve your core heat. Then, as you cool down a little further, you start to
shiver and shivering is a form of involuntary exercise that produces heat. But the thing
about shivering is it doesn't last very long and it's very tiring, so you exhaust fairly
quickly. Once you stop shivering, you're a lizard.
If you're depleted on calories or if you're starved or glycogen-depleted, you just can't
shiver very long and you're really at the mercy of the environment pretty quickly.
BRYAN: Okay. Say you're out hiking. What are some signs for you to look for in your
compatriots to tell whether or not they're getting significantly cold?
MH: If they're slowing down -- and the people who are in the biggest trouble will always be
at the back of the line. So you watch them and if they don't track well, if they look a little
dazed or have a far-away gaze... If they are, you know; they don't. You know. They drop a
mitten and don't pick it up or they fall in the snow and get up and don't brush the snow off.
Cold is having a little impact on them.
More with Dr. Murray Hamlet tomorrow. Check out the worst weather in the world, and how we
deal with it at www.mountwashington.org. The Weather Notebook is produced with funding by
Subaru of America and the National Science Foundation. Special thanks today to Marketing
Manager Melody Nester.
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