According to what I've been told by cold water survival folks in the Navy med research branch, you don't warm a hypothermia victim using body heat from another person. The result is that you warm the victim so slowly, that the surface tissues warm just enough to cause the blood vessels to open up which causes the warm blood in the body core to migrate to the colder extremities and surface layers, thus actually cooling the victim further.

As I've been instructed, the best bet in a life raft situation is to wrap the person well, insulate if possible, and if conscious, administer warm sweet liquid. From the information provided to me by BUMED, hypothermia victims can recover their body heat as soon as heat loss is stopped.

It simply is not practical to pack some sort of warming device in raft. Several posts here about the MRE heater pretty well explains that methods. Putting a compressed flammable gas stove in there creates a whole host of new problems and hazards.

We recommend that some of the food bar be crumbled into the water and the water warmed by body heat of another survivor and then administered to the victim. The food bar is very high in carbs and is sweet.

Putting too much bulky survival gear in the raft starts affecting the inflation reliability. If the raft doesn't inflate, then the gear is moot.

Regards,

Tom