”Habituate. Five or six short cold-water dips over a couple of weeks will cut the cold shock response roughly in half, and the effect lasts for months. This is probably the single most underused safety intervention in open-water swimming.”
We were also told that to treat heatstroke tossing someone in the lake and then treating for shock was somewhat preferable…
There are quarries around where I am that have signs posted to not swim there in the Spring. Yet, like clockwork, 1-2 people drown each Spring.
not when money is involved
I dont even recall how the heck I ended up with them in their trip bus, going to some canyons. Everybody got wet suit (around 5mm), and we ended up jumping from cca 5m cliff down to river. There were still patches of snow on the banks and water temperature was corresponding, most inland of Iceland had still metres of snow, only ring road was cca passable.
Most boys and me kept jumping and climbing back up, it was almost same cold in wet wet suit next to river than swimming in it. Most girls shivered like crazy, blue lips and all.
These were icelanders, around 13 years old, tough as it gets re cold. I recall their teacher explained it to me that in the past, as test of maturity every boy (not sure about girls) had to swim across big fjord somewhere around Husavik IIRC as sort of rite of passage, at least 3km width.
Glad nobody had heart stopped, that river was murky and strong. Every jump into that cold was like an electric ahock to mu body
mikestew•1h ago