Originally Posted By: njs
I apologize in advance for a long and slightly off-topic post.

Originally Posted By: PureSurvival


Despite what has been said, it is hard to recognize hypothermia in oneself and difficult to recognize it in others. The fact is if one of your group is showing signs of hypothermia others in your group including yourself will have some degree of hypothermia too.



I think it is good to say, however; that if one person in a group is symptomatic of hypothermia then conditions exist that can lead to hypothermia in others and people should be careful to exercise good self management.

My experience with cold injuries/illness comes primarily from more than a dozen years as a full-time mountaineering/climbing guide in Alaska and the the Pacific Northwest during which time I treated people in the field with mild to severe hypothermia. As a side note, I too was taught by my physician advisors not to perform chest compressions on a "cold" patient.



I agree, your right and you have worded it far better than I have. But, novice groups like those from youth groups that are far less experienced, less well equipped and often have targets set on them such as getting to such a location to camp or to meet the coach home, are often the type of groups that see multiple cases of hypothermia including the person acting as group leader. They often don’t recognise hypothermia signs and this can be made worse with a drop in the groups morale and everyone climbs inside them selves and don’t speak to each other. The group will often spread out over a distance. Although training of these groups has become much better and with modern materials, clothing systems have become a lot better so hypothermia is becoming less of an issue for these sort of novice groups.

I am glad to hear you were taught not to perform chest compressions. I was starting to think the differences between our different protocols were miles apart. It seems they are not.