Post by OLKoot on Dec 21, 2008 17:53:34 GMT 12.75
The Deadliest Cold-Weather States
William Pentland, 12.19.08, 03:05 PM EST
More people die from the cold in these locales than any other. Alaska makes the list. Washington, D.C., does too.
In November 2005, a 59-year-old man was found dead in Alaska sitting at his breakfast table in a mobile home. Fully clothed and wrapped in a sleeping bag, the man's body was frozen solid as an ice cube. The temperature was -15 degrees Fahrenheit inside the mobile home, and oil-heating tanks were empty when the body was found.
Natural hazards killed 21,491 people in the U.S. between 1979 and 2004, according to a study by epidemiologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released earlier this year in the journal Disasters. Nearly half of those deaths were caused by exposure to the cold--twice the number of heat-related deaths and more than all of the combined deaths resulting from lightning, storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides and other natural events.
In Pictures: Deadliest Cold-Weather States
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elds some obvious results (Wyoming and Montana make the list of those states with the most cold-related deaths, for example), it also turns up some surprises, such as New Mexico and the District of Columbia. The analysis excluded states with fewer than 20 hypothermia-related deaths between 1999 and 2005 and ranked the states by death rates per 100,000 residents.
In Alaska, extreme winter cold fronts can overwhelm isolated individuals like the man found frozen at his breakfast table. In North Dakota, drivers stranded on the side of the road during a winter blizzard succumb to the cold before help arrives. And in Alabama, people don't realize the danger they're putting themselves in if they don't turn up the heat on a cold night.
"In states where heat and humidity is the norm, people may not realize they are vulnerable when it gets cold," said Gerald McGwin, a professor of epidemiology at University of Alabama. "In states where it is normally cold, people die from the cold because they are slightly underprepared or exposed to conditions they didn't anticipate."
But there is at least one reason the cold kills people wherever it does: alcohol.
Heavy drinkers are especially vulnerable to severe and frequently fatal hypothermia. For example, in February 2004, a 16-year-old boy was found dead roughly 40 yards from a road in a rural park in northwestern New Mexico. He had last been seen alive the previous day when he was dropped off at high school. The temperature had fallen as low as 11 degrees Fahrenheit the night before his body was found. The autopsy found evidence of heavy marijuana use and a blood-alcohol concentration nearly twice the state legal limit.
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In May 2005, the body of a 44-year-old Florida man was found in Wyoming, close to a cabin, where his all-terrain vehicle had become mired. He had rigor mortis and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The man had no known medical history; however, an autopsy revealed cocaine and cannabinoids in his blood. He was partially dressed in a pullover, T-shirt, pants and one sock. Temperatures on the preceding day ranged from 30 to 38 degrees Fahrenheit. The coroner certified the cause of death as hypothermia resulting from exposure to cold temperatures while acutely intoxicated.
When the body's core temperature drops below 95 degrees Fahrenheit, a mild form of hypothermia takes hold. If the body continues to lose heat, this mild form of hypothermia morphs into a moderate and then severe form of hypothermia. Fumbling hands, slurred speech and fits of uncontrollable shivering are of worsening hypothermia.
At first, the body restricts blood flow to the extremities to conserve heat in the vital organs. Limbs become numb and then lifeless. Eventually the body's vital organs shut down entirely. Alcohol, which creates a brief "warming" sensation by expanding the blood vessels, accelerates the onset of hypothermia by altering the body's normal circulation rate.
In severe cases of hypothermia, rewarming is a treacherous process that poses a substantial risk of cardiac arrest if mismanaged.
"You can lose a person in extreme cases if you warm them externally first because it will draw blood into the extremities and make the heart unstable," said Christine Bouwens of Vancouver, Canada-based RES-Q Products, a distributor of emergency treatment equipment for hypothermia. "A severely hypothermic person's heart is so unstable that just moving them physically can cause cardiac arrest. The key is warm and wet oxygen into a person's lungs. It has been a long and uphill climb getting people to recognize how hypothermia should be treated."
In urban settings like Washington, D.C., emergency workers have in some cases missed the signs of severe hypothermia because victims are often intoxicated or otherwise psychologically impaired. In a study of hypothermia-related deaths by the CDC in Washington, D.C., many of the fatalities had been taken to detoxification centers before their hypothermia was recognized.
The good news is that the body is potentially more resilient to the cold than the data suggest. While the survival rate in cases where the body's core temperature has fallen below 70 degrees Fahrenheit is minute, people have survived with a core temperature as low as 59 degrees. In places like Alaska and Canada, rescue workers always act according to the following rule: "A body is not dead until it is warm and dead."
William Pentland, 12.19.08, 03:05 PM EST
More people die from the cold in these locales than any other. Alaska makes the list. Washington, D.C., does too.
In November 2005, a 59-year-old man was found dead in Alaska sitting at his breakfast table in a mobile home. Fully clothed and wrapped in a sleeping bag, the man's body was frozen solid as an ice cube. The temperature was -15 degrees Fahrenheit inside the mobile home, and oil-heating tanks were empty when the body was found.
Natural hazards killed 21,491 people in the U.S. between 1979 and 2004, according to a study by epidemiologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released earlier this year in the journal Disasters. Nearly half of those deaths were caused by exposure to the cold--twice the number of heat-related deaths and more than all of the combined deaths resulting from lightning, storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides and other natural events.
In Pictures: Deadliest Cold-Weather States
Article Controls
elds some obvious results (Wyoming and Montana make the list of those states with the most cold-related deaths, for example), it also turns up some surprises, such as New Mexico and the District of Columbia. The analysis excluded states with fewer than 20 hypothermia-related deaths between 1999 and 2005 and ranked the states by death rates per 100,000 residents.
In Alaska, extreme winter cold fronts can overwhelm isolated individuals like the man found frozen at his breakfast table. In North Dakota, drivers stranded on the side of the road during a winter blizzard succumb to the cold before help arrives. And in Alabama, people don't realize the danger they're putting themselves in if they don't turn up the heat on a cold night.
"In states where heat and humidity is the norm, people may not realize they are vulnerable when it gets cold," said Gerald McGwin, a professor of epidemiology at University of Alabama. "In states where it is normally cold, people die from the cold because they are slightly underprepared or exposed to conditions they didn't anticipate."
But there is at least one reason the cold kills people wherever it does: alcohol.
Heavy drinkers are especially vulnerable to severe and frequently fatal hypothermia. For example, in February 2004, a 16-year-old boy was found dead roughly 40 yards from a road in a rural park in northwestern New Mexico. He had last been seen alive the previous day when he was dropped off at high school. The temperature had fallen as low as 11 degrees Fahrenheit the night before his body was found. The autopsy found evidence of heavy marijuana use and a blood-alcohol concentration nearly twice the state legal limit.
Comment On This Story
In May 2005, the body of a 44-year-old Florida man was found in Wyoming, close to a cabin, where his all-terrain vehicle had become mired. He had rigor mortis and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The man had no known medical history; however, an autopsy revealed cocaine and cannabinoids in his blood. He was partially dressed in a pullover, T-shirt, pants and one sock. Temperatures on the preceding day ranged from 30 to 38 degrees Fahrenheit. The coroner certified the cause of death as hypothermia resulting from exposure to cold temperatures while acutely intoxicated.
When the body's core temperature drops below 95 degrees Fahrenheit, a mild form of hypothermia takes hold. If the body continues to lose heat, this mild form of hypothermia morphs into a moderate and then severe form of hypothermia. Fumbling hands, slurred speech and fits of uncontrollable shivering are of worsening hypothermia.
At first, the body restricts blood flow to the extremities to conserve heat in the vital organs. Limbs become numb and then lifeless. Eventually the body's vital organs shut down entirely. Alcohol, which creates a brief "warming" sensation by expanding the blood vessels, accelerates the onset of hypothermia by altering the body's normal circulation rate.
In severe cases of hypothermia, rewarming is a treacherous process that poses a substantial risk of cardiac arrest if mismanaged.
"You can lose a person in extreme cases if you warm them externally first because it will draw blood into the extremities and make the heart unstable," said Christine Bouwens of Vancouver, Canada-based RES-Q Products, a distributor of emergency treatment equipment for hypothermia. "A severely hypothermic person's heart is so unstable that just moving them physically can cause cardiac arrest. The key is warm and wet oxygen into a person's lungs. It has been a long and uphill climb getting people to recognize how hypothermia should be treated."
In urban settings like Washington, D.C., emergency workers have in some cases missed the signs of severe hypothermia because victims are often intoxicated or otherwise psychologically impaired. In a study of hypothermia-related deaths by the CDC in Washington, D.C., many of the fatalities had been taken to detoxification centers before their hypothermia was recognized.
The good news is that the body is potentially more resilient to the cold than the data suggest. While the survival rate in cases where the body's core temperature has fallen below 70 degrees Fahrenheit is minute, people have survived with a core temperature as low as 59 degrees. In places like Alaska and Canada, rescue workers always act according to the following rule: "A body is not dead until it is warm and dead."