I read that, too! Man, I wouldn't be able to do that! Or at least I'd sure hope to have to try.

Saw that. Extraordinary. And, a good lesson. WEAR A LIFE VEST WHEN ON THE WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Drives me nuts when i see all these people out on the water with no life vests.

And suitable insulation as well, like a wet suit. In our brisk California waters, life vests are more aptly termed BRDs,(body retrieval devices) if you are immersed too long (typically more than two hours).....

I'll go a bit further than what Doug said. Wear a life vest with SIGNAL gear. An EPIRB and some survival gear would be nice as well. I have our vests fully packed and ready to go.


Hikermor

It would be nice if they wore wet suits, but who would do suck a thing on a boat under normal circumstances?
An inflatable vest in a carrier with some pockets would be much more practical, if you could get them to wear even that. Even I tend to wear just trunks onboard when its nice. What I want to know is how they both fell overboard?

scuba divers, urchin divers, and surfers....

you make a very good point, but if you are on a boat, don't be in all that big a hurry to take it off.

We had been diving (business, not pleasure) and I came up from the last dive, got out of my suit, and noticed we were heading west, toward an area of heavy weather that we had left a few hours earlier. "what's up?" I asked the captain. "Responding to an emergency - lady overboard in Forney's Cove (Santa Cruz island). He and others were still in wetsuits. I soon wished I had kept mine on as building seas and wind bashed our 36 footer about. We maintained sea level, but if we had gone into the drink, I would have been the first to die.

Oh, yes,and my obit would have described me as an "experienced" diver........

It's June and just off the coast of Florida the water is nice. The average Caribbean water temp is 81°F. According to NOAA (S.East Coast) the average for South Florida in June is 84°-85°F which is even nicer. So while a wetsuit would be great, current temps off Florida are survivable for extended periods without a wetsuit.

As hikermor said though, it's a whole nuther thing off the coast of SOCAL. According to the same NOAA site, S.West Coast is in the 60's -- 60°F even off Anacapa Island, 63°-64°F off Oceanside, CA depending on how far off the coast. That's 20F degrees further away than Miami from 98.6 which is going to work against you in short order. Wetsuit is highly recommended.

I was on Anacapa Island just yesterday. The water was indeed chilly.....

That's a good reason for wearing a wet suit hikermor. But the average person won't. The boss won't wear a vest because she likes to tan and I spend half my time putting a safety line back on her.
Now in bad weather I wear my abandon ship gear and have my bag ready to go. Not only am I Equipped To Survive, I'm a tiny bit paranoid about the survival of those I care for. After all, I finally found one that can cook and puts up with my job.

A Hypothermia Table is germane to these discussions. Note that the table was designed for sea kayakers. In colder conditions without flotation, somewhere between loss of dexterity and unconsciousness, you drown. This couple was fortunate they fell overboard in the Gulf Stream and were spotted by a couple professionals.
Ah man, went fishin' and all I caught was a couple idiots -- can't eat 'em, can't throw 'em back.

Should of had a auto engine cutoff lanyard attached to the wrist or ankle on a speed boat. If the driver falls in the speedboat engines cut out. What a Del boy!

Pants = flotation device. Stuff they teach you in the Navy.

"Ah man, went fishin' and all I caght was a couple idiots -- can't eat 'em, can't throw 'em back."


Actually, you CAN eat them, but don't treat them as fish, treat them as pork.

My father's ancestors ended up in Ft. Lauderdale 100 years ago. I learned early on: wetsuit, and what is now called "drownproofing".
You can't swim, when you're unconcsious (SP--help!). THAT is the best reason to wear a PFD.

...and there's a reason they call it a"deadman switch."

pants = floatation.

have heard this too. don't know if it really works. take off your long-legged pants. tie knots in the leggings at the ankles. turn them upside down and let air inflate the leggings. use them for buoyancy. I have never tried this.

Pete

We learned the pants trick in USCG Boot Camp in Alameda. It does work but one has to keep splashing water over the pants legs often enough to keep them wet or else the air leaks out.

A swimming instructor demonstrated that trick in a pool. I don't know how long to expect it to work without what Wildman said (and I hadn't heard that before his post!)

I've made it work in a lake. Long-term, you'll be splashing water on the legs and periodically refilling them with air.

Bear Grylls did the pants trick in one of his episodes. Seems like a good thing to know but, like anything, I'd want to have some experience trying it out before actually needing it.

That said, the original story reinforces for me that strong swimming skills are an important life / survival skill. That reminds me, I still need to get the daughter signed up for her swimming classes this summer ...

Trust me, it works for sure. As stated though, you keep splashing water on the pants to keep them wet. If they dry out they are no longer able to hold in air. The Navy made us do this in boot camp.

Cool, I learned something here that may save my life one day. Here's a video of the pants trick. (I was having a hard time visualizing.)

http://youtu.be/otxjh8pcs3E

I'm guess jeans are preferred. (?)

I used khakis. Jeans would work, just need a weave/material that's tight enough to hold air when wet.

These military trainees tied the pants legs together and splashed water to generate an air pocket.

http://youtu.be/E3VgMR5NWdU

Dad was a sailor, did two tours on an aircraft carrier. He taught me the pants trick back in the 70's. It works!

Or just wear your PFD.

Bingo!

The inflated jeans trick makes a nice YouTube stunt in a warm, calm pool, but I question how practical it would be in a real deal emergency? Consider that in most cases one would be wearing shoes or boots, which you would need to take off before you could start to take the pants off. Then you need to get the pants off. Then you need to knot both legs. Only then can you get some floatation.

Even slightly cold water will rapidly sap your strength and dexterity. Even moderate wave action will also make this harder. I would like to see a video of someone jumping fully clothed (including shoes) into 60 F water with a stiff wind kicking up a 2ft chop, and making this work. Until then I'm skeptical.

The best advice is still to wear your F-ing PFD!

Actually there was a Marine who went overboard in the Indian Ocean and he used this trick to stay afloat until he was rescued by a Pakistani fishing boat. As I recall he had been presumed dead until he phoned home.

Marine Survives 36 Hours At Sea Inflates Uniform Into Life Preserver After Falling Overboard

81 degrees is still 15 or so degrees cooler than humans, so eventually we'll get hypothermic. Just takes longer. Obviously worse the colder the water.

Re: drown proofing, you can also do the same thing with a long-sleeve shirt. The Navy made us do this in basic; I assume the USMC and USCG teach it as well.

Finally, it's a wonder these articles never mention people being laid up in the hospital with rhabdomylsis after such extended periods of activity. I'm curious how often this is really an issue.

Here's a chart the shows the expected time period of survival for a given temperature:

http://www.pfdma.org/choosing/hypothermia.aspx

Ireckon

Very informative. Thanks for the link.

These estimates are always highly approximate. As an alternative, perhaps slightly more optimistic, see Prof. Popsicle's (Gordon Geisbrecht) chart at
http://www.coldwaterbootcamp.com/pages/1_10_60v2.html. Note that this chart is in degrees C so you will need to convert to F. Also note that immersion hypothermia is one of the few areas where it is advantageous to be a bit overweight!

Note that these survival times assume you have floatation. Without a PFD, you rapidly loose strength and coordination, and it becomes inceasingly difficult to stay afloat. In most cases without a PFD or other floatation you will drown before dying from hypothermia.

A few years ago we had a remarkable case here in Alaska showing just how valuable a PFD can be even in very cold water:
Kenai girl credited with saving friends in Tustumena Lake accident. The girls were in the water for about 2 hours, and remained conscious and able to move towards shore, with water temperature of about 40-45 F (4-7 C).

I'd like to see charts for various proposed survival times for different PFD's like float coats and the float coveralls, which I hadn't even heard of before. And what about various, such as wearing a hat, boots or other base clothing. Someone, somewhere must have looked into this? Maybe military.

It is tough to find that kind of information. One reason is that there are so many variables that it is hard to put together a meaningfull chart or graph. Note that even the simple charts that ireckon and I linked have a very wide range. Take for example the effects of wearing clothing. How much clothing? How many layers? Cotton, wool, poly pro, fleace, goretex? How well does it fit, snug, loose? Is the person fit or a couch potato? Skinny or fat? If so, how fat? Young or old?

Since I live in an area with cold water, and enjoy various water related activities, I've done a fair bit of reading on the subject. For whatever it's worth, below are a few observations. Note that cases 1-4, the differences in survival due to these factors are fairly small. For cases 5-7 the differences can be significant. Ranked very roughly from small effect to large effect:

1. Women have a slight advantage over men. (Different % of body fat?)
2. Being somewhat overweight is a slight advantage. (Fat gives a small bit of insulation.)
3. Almost any clothing you are wearing will help slightly. You loose heat by the water circulating around your body. Clothing slows down the water circulating past your skin and helps you retain a slight bit of heat. Wearing a full set rain gear over pile or fleece probably buys you a bit longer survival than being naked.
4. A float coat gives a bit of insulation. (Unless it fits too loosely.)
5. Float coveralls AKA a "work suit" (Type V PFD) gives quite a bit of insulation. (Snug up the ankles and cuffs to reduce water circulation.)
6. A dry suit over insulation makes a HUGE difference (many hours) in survival.
7. A neoprene survival suit (a "gumby suit") makes an even bigger difference in survival (many many hours).

One bit of info that may help is from Mustang Survival. See the chart with "clo values". Mustang gives a clo rating for some of their products.

AKSAR

Thanks for the info and the time it took to type.I'm familiar with the survival suits, but some of the others are new to me. I've seen the Mustang float coat but the fit on me was very poor. I'm assuming the work suits you mentioned are what I used to see the deck workers on Deadliest Catch wearing. You've given me more to to think about.Thanks again.

There are several version of a minimal, self inflating PFD.

I am late to the party, but since TeacherRO brought it back ---

It has been looked into extensively. Mostly at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. The most complete testing on human subjects was done in the '70s and led to: Hayward, J.S., Lisson, P.A., Collis, N.L., and Eckerson, J.D. Survival Suits for Accidental Immersion in Cold Water: Design-Concept and their Thermal Protective Performance. Dept. of Biology. Univ. of Victoria, B.C. 1978. I have not found a copy online and don't know if I can find my copy, but testing was done in Victoria Harbor on students wearing several different types of clothing. As you might expect wool was better than cotton (but not as much as you might expect) and the fit of the clothing made a difference but again the activity was more important (see below). Human testing of this sort will probably never be done again, but it was a sea change in our understanding of immersion hypothermia.

This work led Hayward to develop what is now the Mustang ThermoSystem Float Coat. The beavertail (or diaper at is commonly called) changes a moderate increase in survival time to a huge one (the modern coat is even better than the original). I have used one for many years and would not be comfortable offshore in cold water without it. I have had it in the water many times (for practice, my only sinking ship I got off with dry feet). Mustang makes several other coats so fit of one may not control fit in the ThermoSystem.

The following is a bit of information from this work that was printed in a pamphlet by Hayward through the Sea Grant Program at UBC. ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/handle/1957/24392?show=full

SUMMARY
The following table summarizes how a selection of
different situations can affect predicted survival time
of the average adult* in water of 50OF (100C):
Situation Predicted Survival Time (Hours)
NO FLOTATION
Drownproofing 1.5
Treading Water 2.0
WITH FLOTATION
Swimming 2.0
Holding-still 2.7
H.E.L.P. 4.0
Huddle 4.0
UVic Thermofloat 9.5
*Clothing worn was cotton shirt, pants, and socks, plus
running shoes.

Respectfully,

Jerry

How much suffering did a student have to endure to get an "A"?

Another enthusiastic vote for the Mustang Float Coat. I wore one a lot while bouncing around the Channel Islands, in and out of the water, sometimes right in the surf. My model had a beaver tail and I would recommend one for any serious purpose.

When kayaking in cool waters (40s or soF) my preferred rig was a float coat, combined with a farmer john 1/4 neoprene wetsuit bottom.

Jerry,

While I think you and I mostly agree on the general aspects of cold water immersion, I have to take issue with a few specific points you made. I have highlighted in bold the specific points I want to address.
There has in fact been a great deal of human testing done since the '70s. In particular, Gordon Geisbrecht (AKA "Prof Popsicle") at Univ of Manitoba has done many experiments, both on himself and students. One difference from the older work at UBC is that by using modern electronics, Geisbrecht and others can now monitor core temperature in real time. For a list of some of Geisbrechts many publications go here. For graphic views of some of his human subject testing, see Cold Water Bootcamp (Canadian version], and Cold Water Bootcamp USA. I highly recommend getting a copy of the "Beyond Cold Water Bootcamp" DVD. It has some remarkable footage of circum-rescue collapse.

I presume this is a typo and you meant 50 F and 10 C? (500F is about the temperature that paper burns, and 100 C is the boiling point of water.)

This seems to imply that a PFD makes no difference, and you can survive about 2 hours with or without a life jacket? Geisbrecht's work has made it abundantly clear that a PFD makes a huge difference. Without a PFD, cooling of the limbs makes it difficult or impossible to swim long before your core cools to even mild hypothermia. Without a PFD in cold water you can't swim long enough to become hypothermic, instead you drown first.

I totally agree that a float coat is a great idea if one is around cold water. Floatation coverals (a work suit) is even better. A full-on insulated dry survival suit (a "gumby suit") is best of all.