By Aaron Collins

The road less traveled promises adventure, but it can also be a potentially deadly choice.

Many readers will recall the local case of the hiker who perished on Mt. Whitney in 2009. But not every deadly emergency occurs during exceptional experiences. Daily living also poses perils. So what should you know in a cold weather emergency? The following names and account are fictionalized to instruct readers in what to do—and  what not to do.

Setting out for a Central California sightseeing Sunday afternoon drive with no particular destination in mind, Jarrod and Jennifer Hanson left their home near the Kings River, happy to be entertaining Jennifer’s mother, Carol Taylor, on her first visit to California following the arrival of their first baby, born three months earlier.

A Kansas-born lifelong flatlander, Carol suggested the spontaneous excursion to the foothills, visible a mere twenty minutes away. From the Valley, the view magnetized her, impossibly majestic at well over 14,000 feet.

Why not go along and make his mother-in-law’s day, possibly her whole trip, Jarrod thought.

Not wanting to seem like the over-fretful new mom, Jennifer was less than enthusiastic, nervous by nature in unfamiliar settings. But she consented quickly. The trip would take a couple of hours at most, she rationalized. And having her veteran mom along for advice with her new daughter, Kylie, Jennifer had ample confidence for what was the baby’s first road trip beyond their routine local jaunts to the market or visits to her pediatrician.

Now in her mid-70s, Carol, had traveled little over the years, never having much time to leave her and her husband’s mom-and-pop hardware store. For the moment, however, she was footloose and feeling glad to be away from the Plains State for the first time in a long time.

But how quickly the cascading sequence of mishaps turned what might have been a fun, offhanded adventure under ostensibly unthreatening skies into perilous misadventure.

Unfortunately, Jarrod’s GPS device offered more confidence than accurate information as the group wended higher into the hills. Some roads that were prompted by the device proved phantom, some were little more than wide trails. Yet other prompted directions would have sent the travelers over cliffs, washed-out paths, or boulder-strewn flats that didn’t appear to have been roads—ever.

Dressed appropriately for outdoors on a moderately cool fall day in the Valley, the group was relatively scantily clad for higher elevation temperatures, a factor that they had not anticipated when setting out. The mercury dropped along with the sun, now sinking in the pink western sky behind the Coast Range, visible from the clear, cold Sierra.

Sure, they were lost, the normally easygoing Jarrod would later admit. But he reasoned they’d just turn around and head downward, back from wherever you came—wherever that was.

Chatting noisily, they were unable to hear the car radiator’s hissing. But once the switchbacks slowed them enough to see it had begun emitting steam, they would soon discover that it had cracked. With a minor explosion and steam now boiling out from under the hood, the jangled Jarrod tried to pull quickly to the side of what was by then a narrow, mostly dirt and gravel road.

Discombobulated, he misjudged the shadowy, soggy shoulder, a deep red, iron-rich brick color darkened by recent rains. The car was not only broken down, but now stuck in a soft, muddy roadside culvert. Not that it mattered much. “Stuck two ways is still just stuck,” he fumed to Jennifer, irritated after she sheepishly offered up exactly where she thought the engine problem might lie.

“I remember just a little steam coming out from under the front of the hood when I pulled into work on Friday,” she granted, omitting that she had noticed a wisp or two the prior couple of days, as well.

The group was now stranded, with virtually no homes or shelter within miles. Jarrod had taken turns suggested by the GPS system, led to an elevation of well over 4,500 feet, to a place they didn’t want to be in the darkening twilight on what was soon to be a very cold, moonless night. Mid-30s were expected on the Valley floor overnight, but at this elevation, microclimate temperatures can differ widely. It is often well below freezing this time of year.

All three adults had their cell phones. Too bad they were well out of range of any cellular service.

Furthermore, no one except Jennifer’s sister in Los Angeles knew the group’s vague afternoon plan. But she knew only that the group had gone sightseeing, not exactly where. Jennifer hadn’t known their itinerary when the sisters last instant messaged via Facebook a few days prior.

An hour ago their world had seemed overly-connected and always on, but suddenly their place in nature seemed like a reality TV survival show gone wrong. They were now on their own with only their wits, light clothing, a baby blanket and the inert car for warmth. At least Jennifer had bundled up Kylie pretty well before departing the house.

Lessons for Old and Young

“Infants have a small body mass compared to the larger surface area of their heads, which leads to more heat loss to the environment,” says Steve Carstens. D.O., Medical Director for the Emergency Department at Kaweah Delta in Visalia. “They have less glycogen stores, so they have limited fuel reserves; and they lack the ability to shiver. Finally infants lack cognitive and physical abilities to cover themselves up or avoid the cold, and inexperienced parents should consider that their newborns cannot tell them if they are cold or not.”

Dr. Carstens points out that it does not take a particularly cold day (i.e., snow on the ground) to produce hypothermia, so parents must make sure to plan ahead for their young ones’ needs.

The elderly are similarly vulnerable, but they face different issues, too. While they have limited physical reserves, says Dr. Carstens, the elderly are more susceptible for a variety of reasons including decreased physiological reserve (lack of muscle mass and glycogen stores) and social isolation.

The elderly tend to have more medical conditions and take more medications, which can interfere with thermoregulation, both hot and cold. And a fixed or limited income, malnutrition, or inability to pay the electric bill cause problems in both winter and summer.

“In my opinion, hypothermia in the San Joaquin Valley is relatively infrequent. However, it still happens,” says Dr. Carstens, because “there is no ideal cutoff for ambient temperature—it just has to be less than the normal body temperature. And the greater the gradient between ambient temperature and body temperature, the faster cooling can occur,” he says. “Reasons for this hypothermia in the Valley include trauma, in which the patient is incapacitated following injury; alcohol or drugs or otherwise altered mental status; and loss of the ability to shiver to generate heat—(due to) medications, age, etc.”

“In residency and in private practice, we have had patients that were significantly hypothermic,” says Dr. Carstens. “We had to actively rewarm the core—chest tubes with circulating warm water, bladder irrigation.”

Elderly people who live alone can become incapacitated. Drug and alcohol users pass out outside. Ill or demented people who live alone can run into undetected or unanticipated troubles, too.

Contrary to the myth, alcohol only makes the cold person sense warmth, as the intoxicated person feels that warmth leaving the body. Alcohol is a vasodilator, causing heat to escape the body more rapidly, making people more susceptible to hypothermia—contrary to images of cowboys with whiskey by the fire on a cold prairie night.

Rivers, swimming pools, heating malfunctions or power outages are just a few other risk factors that contribute to more than 600 deaths per year in the U.S., on average.

Doctor’s Advice

“Remove any wet clothing,” says Dr. Carstens. Once that is done, active rewarming is in order. “That process might include warm blankets, or placing the afflicted into warm circulating water. Care must be taken not to burn the patient,” as sometimes happens in hasty attempts to restore body heat, he points out.

For survival prior to rescue, it’s important to think about body heat in three ways: Make more heat; get more heat from an outside source; and lose less heat to the outside world.

1. Bring extra clothing along on outdoor trips—even on day hikes. You could get lost, or something unexpected might happen. Wet clothing conducts heat away from the body much more rapidly than cold air of the same temperature.
2. Bring matches so you can start a fire if needed. Warm liquids, too, add body heat.
3. Find shelter.
4. Stay dry.
5. If you are with others, share body heat. Depending on who is in the group, you may need to overcome social hesitations to do this, but it may mean the difference between life and death.
6. Be aware. “It won’t happen to us,” or “We’ll only be outside for a little while” are two common beliefs that often precede cold weather emergencies.

STOP for Survival

If you become stranded in the wilderness this winter, remember the acronym STOP: Slow down. Think clearly. Observe your surroundings. Plan each survival step carefully.

When your adrenaline is pumping out of fear or frustration, it’s important to gain control of your breathing. Next, think rationally, and observe your surroundings for what it will take for rescuers to locate you. And finally, lay out a clear, specific plan for survival.

Before heading into the mountains, check weather forecasts. Notify others of your destination and expected return time.

Keep these essential items in your vehicle: a first aid kit, a flashlight or headlamp with extra batteries, nutritional bars, rain gear, a pocket knife, waterproof matches, candles or a fire starter, a map, a compass and a brightly colored, lightweight tarp.

Mistakes stem from being badly prepared, or underestimating risks and making poor judgments on the fly. For example, if snow begins falling, be prepared to alter game plans. If you become stranded, be calm, set out rescue signals and stay with your vehicle, or, if factors strongly suggest you will soon perish if you remain, at least leave a note telling which way you’ve headed. However, statistics suggest that remaining close at hand improves your survival odds.

Remember the rule of threes when exposed to severe weather: You cannot likely survive more than three minutes without air; three hours without shelter; three days without water; three weeks without food; or three months without hope.

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