- Move the person out of the cold. ...
- Remove wet clothing. ...
- Cover the person with blankets. ...
- Insulate the person's body from the cold ground. ...
- Monitor breathing. ...
- Provide warm beverages. ...
- Use warm, dry compresses. ...
- Don't apply direct heat. Don't use hot water, a heating pad or a heating lamp to warm the person.
How to tell if you have hypothermia?
Symptoms of hypothermia in adults and children include: 1 Confusion, memory loss, or slurred speech 2 Drop in body temperature below 95 Farenheit 3 Exhaustion or drowsiness 4 Loss of consciousness 5 Numb hands or feet 6 Shallow breathing 7 Shivering
How to get warm?
Remove wet clothing and dry the person off, if needed. Warm the person's trunk first, not hands and feet. Warming extremities first can cause shock. Warm the person by wrapping them in blankets or putting dry clothing on the person. Do not immerse the person in warm water.
What to do if you can't breathe?
If the person is not breathing, start CPR immediately. Hypothermia causes respiratory rates to plunge, and a pulse might be difficult to detect. For a child, start CPR for children. For an adult, start adult CPR. Continue CPR until the person begins breathing or emergency help arrives.
Why is it important to treat hypothermia?
Severely hypothermic patients must be handled as gently as possible to prevent cardiac arrhythmias. As in milder forms of hypothermia the most important principle is to prevent further heat loss with proper insulation. These patients should not be given anything to eat or drink.
What is moderate hypothermia?
Moderate Hypothermia is identified by the absence of shivering and the onset of impaired consciousness. At this stage careful handling becomes imperative to avoid deterioration and inducing cardiac arrhythmias due to heart muscle irritability from the cold. Active assistance by the patient should be discouraged.
What temperature does hypothermia occur?
Hypothermia occurs when core body temperature drops below 35 degrees Celsius. This occurs when the body’s ability to generate heat by burning calories, muscle exertion and shivering is overwhelmed by heat loss.
How long does it take for hypothermia to set in?
Hypothermia - True hypothermia sets in after about 30 minutes. Most victims never make it to this stage since 75% of individuals succumb and die in the earlier stages of cold water immersion. At this stage, regardless of your body type, size, insulation of clothing, acclimatization and other factors, your body's core temperature gets dangerously ...
What happens when you are immersed in cold water?
Failure to recognize this, can lead to hypothermia, a serious condition which is the abnormal lowering of internal body temperature that should be treated only by medical personnel or specially trained individuals.
Treatment of Mild Hypothermia/Ht I
- Mild Hypothermia can often be treated simply by changing any wet for dry clothing, properly insulating the patient and providing hot sweet drinks for calories. If the patient is otherwise healthy and uninjured once they have been properly insulated and given adequate caloric replacement gentle exercise can be encouraged to further increased body te...
Treatment of Moderate Hypothermia / HT II
- Moderate Hypothermia is identified by the absence of shivering and the onset of impaired consciousness. At this stage careful handling becomes imperative to avoid deterioration and inducing cardiac arrhythmias due to heart muscle irritability from the cold. Active assistance by the patient should be discouraged. As above the patient should have wet clothing replaced with …
Treatment of Severe Hypothermia / HT III
- Patients with severe hypothermia will likely be completely unresponsive to stimuli. They usually will have signs of life (pulse and breathing) but this may be very difficult to detect because it may be at a very slow rate. Rescuers should check for at least a full minute for both pulse and breathing before determining them to be absent. Severely hypothermic patients must be handle…
Treatment of Apparent Death / HT IV
- These patients will appear to be dead. They will not respond to stimuli and have no detectable signs of life such as heart rate or breathing. Despite their appearance of death there have been multiple reports of successful resuscitation of patients with profound hypothermia. Despite the severity of the condition the principles of management remain the same. Very gentle handling, p…
When Is It Hypothermia V Or Actual Death?
- When a patient can be declared dead in the field is a subject of great controversy in the medical field. There have been multiple amazing recoveries of patients with severe hypothermia that no one thought possible. If there is any doubt and it is safe for the rescuers to do so the patient should be treated as HT IV and evacuated to hospital. Ideally the decision to stop resuscitation s…
References
- Durrer B, Brugger H, Syme D. The medical on site treatment of hypothermia in consensus guidelines on mountain emergency medicine. Accessible on the ICAR website (www.ikar-cisa.org) State of Alaska. Cold injuries guidelines (2005); accessible at http://www.chems.alaska.gov Auerbacher P. Field guide to Wilderness Medicine 3rdedition 2008 Ellerton J. Casualty Care in M…