Diving into icy water

From BearWiki

Claim: Diving into icy water in a survival situation is dumb, dumb, dumb.

To begin with, one shouldn't be taking unneccesary risks. You can't get much more of an unnecessary risk than a dive into unknown icy waters, without even knowing that you can get out effectively.

Sudden immersion in icy water can have many effects. First is the shock reaction. The sudden cold can cause the person to instinctively breathe in water. The person may also have shivering so violent that the victim is unable to swim. Secondly, the sudden change of temperature itself can cause cardiac arrest; thin people and older people are at the greatest risk[1]. In controlled circumstances, a brief dive in icy water, while still carrying risk, isn't nearly as problematic as in uncontrolled circumstances. There are even "polar bear clubs"[2] with annual icy water swimming rituals. The entry to the water is generally slower, the water shallower, help available, the water warmer (seawater can get far below water's normal freezing point), and on, and on.

Assuming you live through the initial immersion, the effects of the cold water will start to take hold. Breathing and in general moving your muscles becomes a strain. Your body feels as though your muscles are ignoring your commands. As your core temperature continues to drop, your ability to breathe and stay afloat fail, and you sink. Getting out, you face hypothermia. Even if you get out of your soaking clothes, if your blood sugar levels are insufficient, you risk not recovering. See Getting into hot water as a solution to hypothermia for more details.

[edit] Analysis

Oppose: When did he ever tell people to jump into icy water??? He did it to show people a technique how to get out. He jumped in, it wasn't a stunt man, he had no harness, they didn't preheat the water for him.

Support: And you think that he had no safety gear why? He's repeatedly been caught in other episodes using safety gear, and the camera crew attempted to hide it every time. On some eps (Sierra, Desert Island), we've been given a great insight into the production process, and virtually everything presented is fake. You're convinced that this is different... why?

Support: You don't have to say, "now jump into icy water" to be problematic. The entire premise of the show is that Bear is going to demonstrate how to survive; what he does is presented as being "how you survive" in a given environment. In reality, it is how you kill yourself.

Support: I particularly enjoyed him starting the fire BEFORE he jumped into the icy water. It's certainly convenient to not have to start a fire AFTER you're hypothermic. It would have been MUCH more realistic and informative for him to try to start a fire AFTER he was wet and demonstrate how difficult it truly is under those circumstances.

Support: One of the things pounded into Deadliest Catch viewers' heads over and over is how bad it is to go into the Bering Sea (average temp: 37F) without survival gear. In the first season, there was CGI explaining why people who fall into freezing water die so quickly: 1) You tend to gasp when you hit cold water, and there goes freezing water down your throat and into your lungs. 2) Even if you manage not to swallow or breathe in icy water, once the body detects extreme heat loss, it compensates by pulling blood flow away from arms and legs to preserve the brain and heart; therefore, say bye-bye to having any strength in your arms and legs to pull yourself out of the water. 3) Even blood flow around the heart and brain will cool off quickly in water significantly below the optimal human body temperature; once the body core temp drops below 90F, chances of death increase to near 100%. Without proper cold water clothing, that time can be as short as ten minutes. In short: Don't jump into icy water. Period.

Oppose: The claim here is that he advised people to jump into icy water. If he didn't do that, but rather demonstrated a technique by which one can extrincate yourself from it, the point is moot, isn't it?

Support:If that didn't require artificial handholds. see: Artificial handholds used to crawl out of frozen lake

Oppose: Again, Bear did not, I repeat, did not advise viewers to jump into icy water. He was merely trying to explain a method of getting out if you unintentionally found yourself in that situation. Whether he needed help out of the lake is not what is being argued on this page, nor is whether he had a fire lit prior, it is whether Bear advised viewers to jump in to freezing water without reason - and he did not. Comments on this page aren't arguing that premise at all.

Support: In this episode Bear may not have advised people to jump into icy water, however on several occasions, for instance the Ultimate Survival episode in Ireland, he does advise swimming accross cold lakes, streams etc... Besides, in this episode, if he is indeed trying to show how to save yourself when you've fallen into cold water, he shouldn't have had a burning fire ready. This was just drama and nothing else.