[Sca-cooks] Drive - by Dessertings

[Phlip]

> OK, I'll bite (since I always believed this to be a urban legand) WHAT
> happens to a person who  intakes cold stuff into a hot body and how much
> stuff does it take for this bad whatever to happen?
> Phillipa
>
****************************************************************************
> ******************
>  I just made sure no one took more than a sip at a time as very cold
things
> in very hot bodies can be a BAD thing.

Well, it kinda depends on how hot the body is, and how cold and how much and
how cold the water or whatever is. It has effects externally as well as
internally.

As you may know, when applying ice to an injury, it is STRONGLY reccommended
that you insulate the skin from the ice with a layer of cloth or paper
towel, the reason being that if the person has less than optimal
circulation, you can cause frostbite- I tell my pts at Pennsic, that I am
NOT sending a patient f mine to the hospital in the middle of August, with
frostbite- it makes them smile, and they keep a layer between.

If it is hot out, and you were to suddenly hit me with cold water
unexpectedly, you might very well drop me, with muscle spasms- I've had
enough injuries that I am subject to that sort of thing.

When you get someone who is suffering from heat stress injuries, often their
body temperature regulation has gone all out of whack- it just isn't doing
its job. You can actually give someone in bad shape near-convulsions (that
I've seen) by trying to cool them too suddenly. If the cold is applied
externally, it is fairly easily disposed of and corrected, with gentle
warmth and drying.

Now, think how much worse the situation could be, with someone on the
borderline, who suddenly ingests large quantities of ice water- there's no
convenient way to correct the situation, other than by vomitting, and that
generally takes a little time, and by then most of the damage is done.
Consider that your heart is right in the middle of all this, and you can
trigger some real problems, particularly if the person has a mild problem in
the first place.

I have also heard that the cold water can cause the blood to coagulate
internally (the area is highly vascular) but I've had no formal information
regarding this- that, you'd have to ask Avraham about.

The anecdotal information I have on the matter came from a death claim I was
helping the survivors file, in a case where the deceased had been a roofer,
working on a roof on a hot day, in about 115 to 120 degree fahrenheit heat.
He went into the shelter they had, and quickly ingested about half a gallon
or more of ice water, and he dropped dead. The survivors told me that the Dr
had said that it was caused by his blood suddenly coagulating internally,
stopping his heart, but since I didn't see the medical report, I can't say
whether or not this was the actual case- I just know what his survivors
said.

Phlip