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Frostbite: Yeeeow! · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. We're
0:03
Speaker 1: also looking at you, Oakland. We are coming out to
0:06
Speaker 1: Sketch Fest this year again for the second year in
0:09
Speaker 1: a row, and we're doing it rare Sunday afternoon jam,
0:12
Speaker 1: so that is Sunday, January one pm. You can come
0:16
Speaker 1: see us live and tickets are gonna go fast, So
0:19
Speaker 1: go to s F Sketch Fest dot com and just
0:22
Speaker 1: click on the little ticket links or look at the
0:24
Speaker 1: lineup and follow us there and we can't wait to
0:27
Speaker 1: see everyone. It's one of our favorite cities to perform in.
0:30
Speaker 1: And uh go to s F Sketch Fest dot com Oakland,
0:34
Speaker 1: San Francisco. We will see you soon. Welcome to Stuff
0:39
Speaker 1: you should know from the house Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
0:48
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's
0:51
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry. And it is
0:54
Speaker 1: really cold here in the studio. It is Election Day,
0:59
Speaker 1: Part two. We're recording on Election Day. It's right, Jerry's
1:04
Speaker 1: got on her pants suit, yeah, which means that she's
1:08
Speaker 1: uh gonna make America great again. She's got on her
1:12
Speaker 1: pants suit and her hat that says making American creating. Yes,
1:17
Speaker 1: I early voted, so I wasn't out there today, but um,
1:22
Speaker 1: I heard people saying like, oh, I want to wait
1:24
Speaker 1: till the real day because I just I get more
1:26
Speaker 1: out of that experience. It's like, no, it's like Christmas now. Well,
1:30
Speaker 1: I mean that's just one day. It's spread out over
1:32
Speaker 1: weeks to each their own of course. But when I
1:34
Speaker 1: really voted, they were uh, plenty enough people there for
1:37
Speaker 1: me to feel, um like, I was like, I enjoy voting.
1:41
Speaker 1: It's it's a fun experience. And it wasn't like I
1:44
Speaker 1: showed up early and it was they were just like
1:47
Speaker 1: getting their vote. I don't care a contact. No, they
1:51
Speaker 1: had like still a grand old flag blaring on the
1:55
Speaker 1: speakers at the doorway and all that. Yeah, and hey,
1:58
Speaker 1: well this is for the next life. Jenna should have
2:00
Speaker 1: said this weeks ago. Thank an election volunteer. Okay, just
2:05
Speaker 1: go up and say thank you to somebody. That's a
2:08
Speaker 1: lot of hard work and they only make about twenty
2:11
Speaker 1: five bucks an hour on a lot. I imagine it's
2:15
Speaker 1: not fun in a lot of precincts. And uh, anyway,
2:18
Speaker 1: the good people doing good work and that's all nice.
2:22
Speaker 1: Try to say about that. Are you ready? So let's
2:25
Speaker 1: talk about frost bite. When when you were standing in
2:28
Speaker 1: line for early voting, was it cold out? No? It
2:31
Speaker 1: was um, late October, so it was very, very like
2:35
Speaker 1: a hundred degree Well, you're very lucky that it wasn't
2:38
Speaker 1: cold out because had it been very cold out, chuck,
2:41
Speaker 1: And had you been wearing what you're wearing now a
2:43
Speaker 1: T shirt you know, and me Andy's yeah, and that's it.
2:47
Speaker 1: That's it. Uh, and tennis shoes. Yeah. Well, yeah, it's terrible. Look. Uh,
2:53
Speaker 1: you would have been a likely candidate for frost bite
2:57
Speaker 1: depending on the temperature and arrested. Yeah, perhaps probably, It
3:04
Speaker 1: depends on how cool your election volunteer was, you know.
3:08
Speaker 1: So here's a little tip if you're looking into frostbite
3:13
Speaker 1: for one reason or another. Oh, I know what you're
3:15
Speaker 1: gonna say, don't look at images of frost bit No need. Yeah,
3:20
Speaker 1: I like them. It's like they're like balloon animals, you know. Yeah,
3:27
Speaker 1: we're not making light because it's this is something that
3:30
Speaker 1: affects people to the point of amputation. Yeah, it definitely can.
3:33
Speaker 1: But um, you don't need to go look at the
3:37
Speaker 1: pictures of blackened toes and blistered fingers and things. But
3:42
Speaker 1: if you do and you want to cope with the horror,
3:46
Speaker 1: just pretend again that they're balloon animals. Okay, all right,
3:50
Speaker 1: So have you heard of this dude, Rulong Gardner. I
3:55
Speaker 1: had not until this. So he was a wrestler, and
3:58
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised you hadn't heard of him, especially if,
4:01
Speaker 1: um you if we were talking in the nineties, because
4:05
Speaker 1: he was virtually a nobody. He was a professional Olympic
4:09
Speaker 1: level wrestler Greco Roman, of course, but he was um yeah,
4:13
Speaker 1: not like WWF Olympic wrestling, they should do that, but
4:18
Speaker 1: uh more like a team fox catcher style wrestling, right. Uh, sure, okay,
4:24
Speaker 1: But in the two thousand Olympics in Sydney, this guy
4:27
Speaker 1: came out of nowhere. He never placed like higher than
4:29
Speaker 1: either fourth or fifth, I think, and he came out
4:31
Speaker 1: of nowhere in the two thousand Olympics and won the gold.
4:35
Speaker 1: He became like the reigning world champion of Greco Roman wrestling. Right,
4:41
Speaker 1: and he was just this cool, nice farm boy from Wisconsin, No,
4:45
Speaker 1: from Wyoming. Okay, and uh a couple of years after
4:50
Speaker 1: his win, his big win in the Olympics, he was
4:52
Speaker 1: snowmobiling out around his house, I guess, and he got
4:56
Speaker 1: stuck up there in like a seventeen thousand foot elevation
5:00
Speaker 1: in um mountainous area close enough, still pretty high, and
5:05
Speaker 1: it was cold out. It was, I mean super cold,
5:08
Speaker 1: chuck eight degrees below fahrenheit. That's crazy negative sixty two
5:14
Speaker 1: degrees celsius. And he's stranded, like he's out there. So
5:17
Speaker 1: when you're like this, unless you have um prepared to
5:22
Speaker 1: spend an extended amount of time outdoors in that weather.
5:26
Speaker 1: Even if you have sometimes yeah, but if you haven't,
5:29
Speaker 1: you're in big trouble. You're definitely you're probably going to die.
5:34
Speaker 1: At the very least, you're gonna you're going to get
5:36
Speaker 1: some serious frost bite. And that's all that Rulan Gardner
5:39
Speaker 1: ended up with, with serious frost bite. And they're actually
5:42
Speaker 1: he's a really good example, as we'll see of how
5:45
Speaker 1: a person or why a person could survive in that
5:49
Speaker 1: kind of weather and just get frost bite. Right. Yeah,
5:54
Speaker 1: he did not bad, No, not bad for being out
5:57
Speaker 1: there for um it was a seventeen hours in negative
6:01
Speaker 1: eighty degree fair high. I'd be like, just the moment
6:04
Speaker 1: I stepped outside, I'd just fall over and die. I wouldn't.
6:07
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even make it onto my snowmobile. They're like, Josh,
6:10
Speaker 1: you can probably make it, and you're like, oh, leave me,
6:13
Speaker 1: You're still in the living room. So he actually came
6:17
Speaker 1: back in one of bronze with the toe missing. Yeah,
6:21
Speaker 1: missing it. So it's pretty good. Yeah. And I saw
6:24
Speaker 1: he was on that Biggest Loser show. I think he
6:26
Speaker 1: he gained a lot of weight. So if it was fat,
6:30
Speaker 1: that's not good for frost bite. If it was muscle mess,
6:34
Speaker 1: it's like Mr Frostbite Fighter. I think he put on
6:37
Speaker 1: fat weight and went on the Biggest Loser and I
6:41
Speaker 1: think perhaps lost that weight. Uh, I'm good for him. Boy,
6:46
Speaker 1: he's just a winner all over, didn't he sounds like it? So, Um,
6:50
Speaker 1: frost bite, it turns out, is not a an extensively
6:55
Speaker 1: studied malady. It's it called a cold weather injury, right,
7:00
Speaker 1: cold temperature injury. It's not tracked very well either. No,
7:03
Speaker 1: and up until the reason why it is because up
7:05
Speaker 1: until about the fifties, Um, if you got frostbite, you
7:10
Speaker 1: were probably a soldier. That's where most cases of frostbite
7:14
Speaker 1: came from. We're from the militaries around the world. You're
7:17
Speaker 1: a cross country skier or a soldier, right. And then
7:20
Speaker 1: as cross country skiing got more popular, and then downhill
7:24
Speaker 1: skiing game popularity, and then snowbarning came along, and outdoor
7:27
Speaker 1: winter sports increased, and mountain climbing is another big one too.
7:33
Speaker 1: Incidents of frostbite went up as well. So it was
7:38
Speaker 1: really just the last few decades that frost bitt's really
7:40
Speaker 1: become a lot more prevalent. It's become like significantly prevalent,
7:44
Speaker 1: But it hasn't. It's it's just our understanding of it
7:48
Speaker 1: isn't as um a widespread as you would think. Yes,
7:51
Speaker 1: saysn't here ten percent of casualties American casualties and w
7:56
Speaker 1: W two and Korea we're frostbite. Yeah that crazy. And
8:01
Speaker 1: a lot of those I saw were high altitude frostbite
8:04
Speaker 1: cases where they were up in a plane and the
8:07
Speaker 1: plane wasn't insulated enough. So I don't interested, poor guys
8:10
Speaker 1: just got frostbite. Yeah. Uh, cold weather injuries. Uh, and
8:15
Speaker 1: this includes frostbite and other stuff. Um. That says that
8:19
Speaker 1: men between thirty to forty nine it's most common. Uh,
8:22
Speaker 1: and it it just makes sense. It says they're more
8:24
Speaker 1: likely to be the ones and engaging in these kind
8:28
Speaker 1: of outdoor extreme uh temperature activities tell that the peek
8:33
Speaker 1: a boo street. Yeah, that's what I say. Uh. And
8:36
Speaker 1: then of course if you live in a warm or
8:39
Speaker 1: hot weather country, um, and maybe you're a soldier or something,
8:44
Speaker 1: then you're gonna be more likely to get frostbite. Yes.
8:47
Speaker 1: So apparently if you are of African descent, Arab descent,
8:51
Speaker 1: or Pacific island or descent, you are likelier to get
8:56
Speaker 1: frostbite than uh, like a Caucasian or an Asian person.
9:01
Speaker 1: And that's because of your just what your body's used to.
9:05
Speaker 1: They don't know, no one's ever said uh any any
9:10
Speaker 1: explanation of it tends to be armchair and traps is
9:13
Speaker 1: very quickly into like racism, you know. So science is like,
9:17
Speaker 1: we've documented that it's definitely true. I think, um, African
9:21
Speaker 1: American soldiers get it like four times, more like four times,
9:26
Speaker 1: they're four times likely or to get it than their
9:28
Speaker 1: Caucasian Caucasian soldiers in the same study. But they're like,
9:32
Speaker 1: we have no idea why. We just can't say why,
9:35
Speaker 1: Like what are you saying? Like we're not saying anything,
9:38
Speaker 1: We're just saying it you just documented it. Uh, all right,
9:42
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about the symptoms. Um.
9:46
Speaker 1: Like we said before, even if you are addressed for
9:49
Speaker 1: the weather, it's this prolonged exposure and I can I went,
9:53
Speaker 1: I had the worst. What's the worst cold weather experience
9:57
Speaker 1: of your life? Do you remember? I do? All Let's
10:00
Speaker 1: let's share these real quick. When I was four, maybe five,
10:06
Speaker 1: I had these this pair of cowboy boots that I loved,
10:10
Speaker 1: and I got him when I was maybe three. Well,
10:12
Speaker 1: you started to grow significantly between three and four and five,
10:16
Speaker 1: so I'd outgrown the cowboy boots. But my parents had
10:19
Speaker 1: neglected to buy me replacement cowboy boots, and it neglected
10:22
Speaker 1: to take away the ones they were now too small.
10:25
Speaker 1: So I went outside and I wanted to wear my
10:27
Speaker 1: cowboy boots, but I couldn't wear socks with them, right,
10:30
Speaker 1: And it is the middle of winter and Toledo, Like,
10:33
Speaker 1: I'm sliding around on ice in my cowboy boots with
10:35
Speaker 1: no socks. And I got home and I lost three toes.
10:40
Speaker 1: I didn't lose the toes, but everything else was was
10:43
Speaker 1: That was my first brush with the concept of frostbite,
10:46
Speaker 1: because my mom was like, you could have gotten frostbite,
10:49
Speaker 1: Like this is you're you're a dumb kid. That was.
10:53
Speaker 1: That was a really eye opening experience for me. I
10:57
Speaker 1: went to a Cleveland Browns game, if you years ago
11:02
Speaker 1: in Cleveland, possibly the most miserable sporting event I've ever
11:07
Speaker 1: not possibly I've never understood why, far and away, why what?
11:11
Speaker 1: Why people do that to themselves? Well, they were like
11:14
Speaker 1: a badge of honor in those cold weather states, you know,
11:17
Speaker 1: like you know, yeah, they love that stuff. I don't
11:22
Speaker 1: know if they really love it or if they just
11:23
Speaker 1: it's they've all gotten so used to dealing with it
11:28
Speaker 1: that that's their way to deal with it is by
11:31
Speaker 1: putting down people who don't have to deal with it, right, Like,
11:35
Speaker 1: you know, they'll come to Atlanta and it'll be like,
11:37
Speaker 1: you know, twenty eight degrees, which is cold and just
11:41
Speaker 1: like summer to us. No, it's below freezing. Like anyway,
11:48
Speaker 1: the Browns Dolphins game of a few years ago was
11:52
Speaker 1: truly miserable. It was that stadium in Cleveland is right
11:55
Speaker 1: next to the lake and the water. The wind just
11:59
Speaker 1: whip soft that water into the stadium. Man, and I
12:02
Speaker 1: was I remember walking in there thinking like, man, I
12:06
Speaker 1: am toasty. I'm gonna be just fine. I was layered
12:10
Speaker 1: like eight layers deep, had pocket warmers like this, I've
12:14
Speaker 1: got this. And as the game went on, just slowly
12:17
Speaker 1: and slowly and slowly, they just started to creep in
12:20
Speaker 1: through all those layers. And I'm talking long John's thermals, sweatshirts, sweaters,
12:26
Speaker 1: hoodies and like the the Big Parka. It sounds like
12:30
Speaker 1: you did everything, everything right and it's still just cut through.
12:34
Speaker 1: And by the end of the game, my internal core
12:36
Speaker 1: was freezing, right, And that's the big problem, right, because
12:41
Speaker 1: the frost bite is your body's natural response to staving
12:46
Speaker 1: off hypothermia, which is an even bigger problem. You're not
12:50
Speaker 1: gonna die from frostbite because there's only certain areas of
12:53
Speaker 1: the body and they're really ultimately not that important to
12:56
Speaker 1: keeping you alive. But hypothermia, that's the that's the money problem, right,
13:02
Speaker 1: That's the one that's going to kill you, because with hypothermia,
13:05
Speaker 1: your core temperature drops and you end up freezing to death.
13:10
Speaker 1: Frostbite is your body's reaction to that and what it does, right,
13:16
Speaker 1: you dummy, Once you go this one's on TV. That's
13:18
Speaker 1: not even blacked out, like go watch it on TV dummy.
13:21
Speaker 1: But we can lose a toe, right, and that's fine.
13:24
Speaker 1: It will be a badge of honor and you can
13:25
Speaker 1: go to Green Bay with that thing. So your your
13:29
Speaker 1: body says, all right, fine, well we'll lose a toe.
13:31
Speaker 1: Then I'm gonna stop sending blood to your extremities, including
13:35
Speaker 1: your toe, and I'm gonna save it for your core, right.
13:39
Speaker 1: And it's not like your core needs more blood at
13:42
Speaker 1: that point. But when your blood goes out to like
13:44
Speaker 1: your skin and your fingers and your arms, and your
13:47
Speaker 1: ears and your nose and your penis, you can get
13:52
Speaker 1: frostbite on your penis. Did you come across that, Uh,
13:57
Speaker 1: what do you mean, come across the Browns game in
14:00
Speaker 1: your research? Did you see that? No? I didn't. You
14:05
Speaker 1: can right, Well, that's definitely not something I will google.
14:08
Speaker 1: So when blood goes out to these extremities, it's it's
14:11
Speaker 1: being exposed to that cold air or whereas if it
14:14
Speaker 1: stays circulating in the core, then it's able to just
14:17
Speaker 1: keep the core warm because the blood is not getting
14:20
Speaker 1: cold and coming back into the core and robbing the
14:22
Speaker 1: core of its warmth to reheat the blood. I would
14:24
Speaker 1: hope that wee Wei is close enough to your core.
14:27
Speaker 1: I saw amongst joggers it can be a real problem.
14:30
Speaker 1: Well that's because they're wearing those little dolphin running shorts, right, yeah,
14:35
Speaker 1: in Green Bay, and I should finish up that story
14:38
Speaker 1: about that game. It was not only miserable because of
14:40
Speaker 1: the weather, but that field was wet and frozen and
14:46
Speaker 1: it was the Browns Dolphins and it was literally like
14:49
Speaker 1: I think it was like a six to nothing game.
14:51
Speaker 1: Oh man, it was just awful. Did you at least
14:54
Speaker 1: get some good nachos out of the deal? I don't
14:57
Speaker 1: think so you're too cold to eat? Now? Well, I
15:00
Speaker 1: mean I was with my in laws and sister in law,
15:03
Speaker 1: my father in law. They don't need to my cousin
15:06
Speaker 1: in law. Cousin in law. Yeah, so that was fun, okay,
15:10
Speaker 1: But by the end of the game, I was like,
15:11
Speaker 1: you people are crazy. This is miserable. I know everyone's drunk,
15:17
Speaker 1: which is a bad move as far as Frostbike goes.
15:20
Speaker 1: As we'll see. That's right. But let's get back to
15:22
Speaker 1: this some bit about sending warm blood to the extremities.
15:26
Speaker 1: There is um and this is something I did not know.
15:29
Speaker 1: It's pretty neat though, but your hands and your feet
15:32
Speaker 1: have these little junctions between arteries and veins that you
15:36
Speaker 1: can shut off like a faucet, uh, called arterio venus
15:42
Speaker 1: and astomoses, and you na, that's literally what happens is
15:47
Speaker 1: your body starts to get cold and they say, you
15:50
Speaker 1: know what, I'm gonna shut shut it down for your
15:52
Speaker 1: hands and feet, so sorry, but we need to keep
15:55
Speaker 1: your internal organs and you're we we nice and warm. Right,
16:00
Speaker 1: there's the there's actually something called the hunting response, and
16:03
Speaker 1: the hunting response is where your arterio vanous ennis demosis
16:09
Speaker 1: shut off, So the blood to your extremities is shut off,
16:13
Speaker 1: but then every ten to fifteen minutes you're they get
16:18
Speaker 1: turned back on so that there's blood going back to
16:22
Speaker 1: your extremities again for a few minutes, and then you
16:24
Speaker 1: get shut off again. So it's it's keeping it going
16:27
Speaker 1: just enough so that your your extremities aren't actually going
16:31
Speaker 1: to free interesting. But then that hunting response is only
16:34
Speaker 1: good down to about zero degrees celsius. They're freezing right
16:39
Speaker 1: once it hits that you're hunting response turns off and
16:42
Speaker 1: you're the circulation to your extremities is shut off entirely.
16:47
Speaker 1: It's not coming back on anymore. Yeah, and at this point, Um,
16:51
Speaker 1: your skin is literally freezing. Between this the space between cells,
16:56
Speaker 1: ice crystals are forming. It's going to dehydrate the interior
17:00
Speaker 1: or those cells and damage that tissue. And you're in
17:03
Speaker 1: bad shape at that point, yeah, because ice crystals are
17:06
Speaker 1: literally forming in between your cells, right, and if that
17:10
Speaker 1: damages the cells, that's bad enough. But when ice is forming,
17:14
Speaker 1: as anybody knows, ice is less dense than water, right,
17:21
Speaker 1: and as it forms, it takes that water and sucks
17:24
Speaker 1: it up. And since cells love homeostasis, they want to
17:29
Speaker 1: regain that balance of salt of um solution between the
17:34
Speaker 1: outside of cell and inside of cell. So water is
17:37
Speaker 1: drawn out of the cells. That stuff freezes too, and
17:40
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, your cells are dehydrated and the
17:42
Speaker 1: stuff in between them is ice crystals. So it's it's
17:45
Speaker 1: a bad jam in there. And we'll we'll get further
17:48
Speaker 1: into the cells after this. So check the extracellular matrix
18:18
Speaker 1: is frozen into ice crystals. Your cells are dehydrated, um,
18:23
Speaker 1: and your skin is literally freezing, and you're watching the
18:28
Speaker 1: browns in the dolphins right exactly. It's bad. What you've
18:31
Speaker 1: just entered is um the first degree, or the I
18:35
Speaker 1: should say not the first degree, but the first part
18:38
Speaker 1: of um of frost bite. That's right, And actually that's
18:44
Speaker 1: probably called frost nip. I think frost nip comes before that.
18:49
Speaker 1: I think as your skins is, it's getting closer and
18:52
Speaker 1: closer to zero degrees. It says here frost nip is
18:57
Speaker 1: mild frost bite. Only skin freezes, and skin appears yellowish
19:01
Speaker 1: or white but feels soft to the touch. Tingling and
19:04
Speaker 1: burning sensations. But there's no like, the extra cellular matrix
19:08
Speaker 1: is not actually freezing and forming ice crystal. I don't
19:11
Speaker 1: think at this point. Yeah, in frost nip once it
19:13
Speaker 1: just sounds cuter, one, yeah it does. Then you just
19:15
Speaker 1: got a little frost nip. Yeah, some marshmallows will clear that, right. Uh.
19:20
Speaker 1: Once the ice crystals forming the extra cellular matrix, you've
19:23
Speaker 1: hit frost bite though, for sure. Yeah. Um, so can
19:27
Speaker 1: we talk about the degrees now? All right? First degree, Uh,
19:31
Speaker 1: superficial wounding and underlying of the skin and the underlying
19:34
Speaker 1: tissue and nom to the sensation that might be frost nip. No,
19:38
Speaker 1: frost nip has tingling. Still, frost bite is where you're numb,
19:44
Speaker 1: all right, Yeah, and your hands supposedly feel like blocks
19:46
Speaker 1: of wood or your leg or your penis whatever whatever
19:51
Speaker 1: is being frost bitten. And it's horrible, feel like a
19:54
Speaker 1: heavy block of wood. Second degree, Uh, still so official,
20:01
Speaker 1: just like you don't want to hang around. It's not
20:03
Speaker 1: very deep in conversation, very superficial. Uh. And the skin
20:07
Speaker 1: blisters and the tissue freezes. A third degree, you're going
20:10
Speaker 1: to get that deep tissue and skin wounding, um blisters,
20:15
Speaker 1: blood filled blisters, permanent tissue damage. And then finally fourth degree,
20:21
Speaker 1: no good at all. You're gonna lose a digit or
20:23
Speaker 1: a limb because of all the dead tissue. Severe severe
20:27
Speaker 1: tissue damage. Yeah, yeah, almost certainly going to result in
20:32
Speaker 1: the amputation because you're you've got necrosis, you've got cellular
20:35
Speaker 1: cellular death, like extensive cellular death. When those things get
20:39
Speaker 1: dehydrated and cut up by the crystals, the ice crystals,
20:43
Speaker 1: they're toasts, no coming back, no, And it's even worse,
20:47
Speaker 1: it turns out when it freezes and then thaws and
20:52
Speaker 1: then refreezes. Yeah. I did not know that, and it will.
20:55
Speaker 1: It makes sense though, because like you've got the initial
20:58
Speaker 1: damage from those ice crystals that for and then they
21:01
Speaker 1: thought and then they formed new ice crystals and do
21:03
Speaker 1: even more extensive damage. It would make sense that your
21:06
Speaker 1: cells would be like you had one shot, you blew
21:09
Speaker 1: it if you thought and then refroze. Who does that?
21:13
Speaker 1: It's like skunky beer. Yeah, all right. So I just
21:17
Speaker 1: gave myself away and said that I did not know
21:19
Speaker 1: that about the rewarming. But I also and I wrote
21:22
Speaker 1: articles on cold weather survival. Oh yeah, and I don't remember.
21:27
Speaker 1: I thought the way to treat frostbite was too very
21:30
Speaker 1: and I think I might have been thinking hypothermia was
21:32
Speaker 1: too very. Gradually rewarm your hand or whatever. Not with frostbite,
21:37
Speaker 1: it makes you totally thought like, no, you don't want
21:40
Speaker 1: to shock your your frost bitten hand. You know you
21:43
Speaker 1: do with warm water. But that's exactly what you want
21:45
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, and you it has to be warm water.
21:48
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because direct heat from like
21:50
Speaker 1: a heating pad or something like that can actually really
21:53
Speaker 1: damage the damage that's already done. It can it can
21:56
Speaker 1: take it and finish it off well, because you you
21:59
Speaker 1: don't have that feeling in your hands, so you might
22:01
Speaker 1: be burning yourself and not even know it, right, But
22:03
Speaker 1: I get the impression that also direct heat itself actually
22:07
Speaker 1: on a cellular level is problematic for the tissue damage. Right,
22:11
Speaker 1: So you want indirect warmth through water? Oh, interesting, and
22:15
Speaker 1: you plunge your hands. Let's say, so, I keep going
22:17
Speaker 1: to hands because I think that's probably the most um
22:20
Speaker 1: hands and feet probably sure, um, let's say its feet. Right.
22:25
Speaker 1: You get a couple of buckets of hundred and four
22:27
Speaker 1: degree fahrenheit temperature water, and you plunge your hands and
22:31
Speaker 1: your feet in them and just leave them in there
22:34
Speaker 1: until they're rewarmed. Yeah, you don't want to uh, you
22:37
Speaker 1: want to make it too hot? No, And this is
22:40
Speaker 1: there's some really important points to say here, Like, first
22:42
Speaker 1: of all, we're not doctors. No, we're not lawyers either,
22:46
Speaker 1: but we know enough to say that we're not doctors.
22:48
Speaker 1: That's correct. So if you are, if you find yourself
22:51
Speaker 1: in a cold weather injury survival situation like this, or
22:56
Speaker 1: you come across somebody from what I've seen, you don't
23:00
Speaker 1: actually want to do this until like you're down off
23:02
Speaker 1: the mountain. Well yeah, because of the whole thing with
23:05
Speaker 1: following and refreezing. That's one part of it said, like,
23:08
Speaker 1: don't start this process unless you know you can complete it, right,
23:11
Speaker 1: and unless that you know that it's not going to
23:14
Speaker 1: freeze again because you got the freeze thaw freeze injury
23:18
Speaker 1: that comes about. But also one of the other things
23:21
Speaker 1: you're gonna find is that, like I was saying earlier,
23:24
Speaker 1: your extremity that's frost bitten. Once it thaws, it's going
23:28
Speaker 1: to resemble a balloon animal very quickly. And if you're
23:32
Speaker 1: hiking out of a of a like a mountain area,
23:36
Speaker 1: somebody came to get you finally, Um, you're actually better
23:42
Speaker 1: off walking out on your frost bitten feet then you
23:45
Speaker 1: are rewarming them and trying to walk out on those
23:48
Speaker 1: because they're going to just balloon up and you will
23:51
Speaker 1: not be able to walk on them afterwards, at the
23:53
Speaker 1: very least of their frost bit and you can't feel
23:55
Speaker 1: them and they're not swollen. But part of the thawing
23:58
Speaker 1: process is what's called perfusion reperfusion, and there's something called
24:03
Speaker 1: a reperfusion energy where blood and oxygen comes back to
24:06
Speaker 1: the site and it actually leads to inflammation and the
24:09
Speaker 1: tissue damage from the body going back to its normal
24:13
Speaker 1: processes can actually make the whole thing way worse. Yeah,
24:17
Speaker 1: And and that also ties in nicely with One of
24:20
Speaker 1: the things you recommend is to keep moving if you're
24:23
Speaker 1: stranded somewhere, even if you don't leave the area, get
24:26
Speaker 1: up and walk in circles, like anything you can do
24:28
Speaker 1: to try and get circulation going to those extremities. Again. Yeah,
24:32
Speaker 1: and we talked about it kind of in the Hibernation
24:34
Speaker 1: episode where when you UM make your muscles move, it
24:38
Speaker 1: requires energy and it burns that a t P and
24:43
Speaker 1: creates heat as a byproduct. So anytime you can move
24:46
Speaker 1: your muscles, you're actually generating heat, which is what the
24:48
Speaker 1: shiver responses. That's right. Uh. One thing that they said
24:52
Speaker 1: UM in two thousand seven, though, was an issue in
24:55
Speaker 1: Archives of Surgery, that Hot Hot publication. UM. They said
25:00
Speaker 1: that they had some pretty good results promising at least
25:02
Speaker 1: from a study about UM anti clotting agents like blood
25:06
Speaker 1: denning agents to help that blood flow. But I don't
25:09
Speaker 1: know where that's gone since then. And it said that
25:11
Speaker 1: not everyone's a candidate for that. And you know, this
25:14
Speaker 1: is something that you would obviously not have if you
25:17
Speaker 1: were out there trying to survive, something you would get
25:19
Speaker 1: maybe in the emergency room, sure, right. And the other
25:22
Speaker 1: big thing is infection after you've rewarmed that tissue. Uh,
25:26
Speaker 1: infection is a big problem waiting to happen. Huge problem. Um,
25:32
Speaker 1: Like you're a prime candidate for tetanus. Yeah, when your
25:36
Speaker 1: feet swell, the skin can very easily crack your toke
25:41
Speaker 1: and just fall off. And you don't have to worry
25:43
Speaker 1: about amputation anyway, right. Um. And again, a lot of
25:46
Speaker 1: this is what's called a perfume, reperfusion and injury. So
25:52
Speaker 1: when this immune response or this inflammation response comes and
25:56
Speaker 1: puffs up your your foot or your hand or whatever
25:58
Speaker 1: it has been frost bitten. Um, if you're out in
26:01
Speaker 1: the field, you would be very smart to have ala
26:04
Speaker 1: very gel on you because it actually prevents what are
26:08
Speaker 1: called um prost glandens from entering the site. And they're
26:13
Speaker 1: part of the inflammatory response. So the more you can
26:15
Speaker 1: keep your your frost bitten hand or foot from being inflamed,
26:20
Speaker 1: the better off You're gonna be another thing that you're
26:22
Speaker 1: not supposed to do. H And it says here, the
26:25
Speaker 1: thing that you've seen in movies where you clap your
26:27
Speaker 1: frozen hands together, I've never seen in my life. What
26:31
Speaker 1: is that? I don't know, I don't know what that is.
26:35
Speaker 1: That was like the Karate Kid, I think is the
26:36
Speaker 1: movie that maybe, but it also says here, don't walk
26:40
Speaker 1: on your frozen feet, and um, that sounds counter to
26:43
Speaker 1: what we were saying. I think what we were talking
26:45
Speaker 1: about earlier is if like the only way out of
26:48
Speaker 1: the woods is you to save your life. Yeah, yeah,
26:51
Speaker 1: but if you've got you know, like rescue people, oh yeah,
26:54
Speaker 1: don't walk. Yeah yeah. If you've got people that will
26:57
Speaker 1: carry you down a mountain, go with that exactly. I
26:59
Speaker 1: think what this guy was saying was, if you are
27:02
Speaker 1: up on the mountain and yeah, the person needs to
27:05
Speaker 1: walk down, you probably shouldn't start the thawing process because,
27:09
Speaker 1: got you, they're not going to be able to walk
27:11
Speaker 1: after their feet or thought, because we're gonna balloon up, gotcha.
27:15
Speaker 1: All right, Well let's take another break and we'll talk
27:18
Speaker 1: a little bit about prevention right after this. All right,
27:47
Speaker 1: stay out of the cold the end. That's the prevention.
27:51
Speaker 1: It literally says that in our own article. Um, that's
27:54
Speaker 1: obviously the common sense thing to tell people. But uh,
27:59
Speaker 1: if you were a hot is an outdoor cold weather hobbyists,
28:05
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be out there, or if you're a
28:07
Speaker 1: reindeer herder, well also saying you might have a job
28:09
Speaker 1: too though you're a mail carrier or roadworks, reindeer herder,
28:16
Speaker 1: reindeer herder, farm oil. The oil industry has a lot
28:21
Speaker 1: of frostbite. Uh sure I could see that. Um. So
28:25
Speaker 1: there's a lot of industries obviously where you're forced to
28:27
Speaker 1: be out there and hopefully you're being taken care of
28:29
Speaker 1: uh through the company work for but you should also
28:33
Speaker 1: take care of yourself by layering, like we talked about. Um,
28:39
Speaker 1: use that thermal underwear on the bottom and then layer
28:42
Speaker 1: on top of that. Yeah, and you want to you
28:44
Speaker 1: want to wear something that, um that is tight, well,
28:49
Speaker 1: not necessarily tight, it's it's fitting, but not compression. I
28:53
Speaker 1: saw specifically several places do not wear compression clothing and
28:56
Speaker 1: cold water, cold weather situations, all right, Um, and you
29:00
Speaker 1: want stuff that's not going to make you sweat or
29:03
Speaker 1: is going to trap sweat. You want stuff that's gonna breathe,
29:06
Speaker 1: because if you sweat and it traps the sweat, that's
29:09
Speaker 1: gonna your clothes are gonna freeze your body. So comfortable wicking. Yes,
29:14
Speaker 1: clothing layered upon layer upon layer, preferably with modal it's
29:21
Speaker 1: very soft. Um. What else you can keep your your
29:26
Speaker 1: body in shape. Um, Diabetes and other circulatory diseases, thyroid conditions,
29:33
Speaker 1: they can all lend themselves to be more apt to
29:36
Speaker 1: get frostbite. Yeah, and um, a common myth I thought
29:40
Speaker 1: this was the case too. But a common myth is
29:42
Speaker 1: that if you're overweight, if you have layers of fat,
29:46
Speaker 1: it will protect you on the cold. And actually not true. No,
29:48
Speaker 1: it's not true. Supposedly, um, layers of fat tend to
29:52
Speaker 1: deaden your nerve endings, which would tell your body to
29:55
Speaker 1: like get some blood going. And if they're deadened, then
30:00
Speaker 1: are not going to be doing that. One thing you
30:02
Speaker 1: should do, though, right is if you have a little
30:03
Speaker 1: whiskey and a cigarette, Just nip on that and smoke
30:06
Speaker 1: a cigarette and that will warm you right up right.
30:09
Speaker 1: It's not true. Maybe if you know for a fact
30:11
Speaker 1: that no one's coming for you might as well have
30:12
Speaker 1: a last drink and the last smoke. But if you're
30:16
Speaker 1: trying to warm yourself, no, those are that's the opposite
30:19
Speaker 1: of what you want to do. Yeah, it's um. I
30:21
Speaker 1: think we did another show on avalanches. Maybe that was
30:25
Speaker 1: right A long time ago. Yeah, because I remember the
30:29
Speaker 1: drinking alcohol it gives you, Um, it's so, and it
30:32
Speaker 1: also talks about other illegal drugs. Um but booze is
30:37
Speaker 1: a sort of a double edged not double edged sword,
30:40
Speaker 1: the double hammer hammer. It's a two headed hammer because
30:46
Speaker 1: it makes you feel warmer, but you're actually getting colder.
30:51
Speaker 1: And it's it's also going to affect your you know,
30:55
Speaker 1: and judgment. Yeah, yeah, you might stop walk can around.
31:00
Speaker 1: You might be like, oh, it doesn't matter, yeah, stupid mountain.
31:03
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna sit down. This is what this vodka
31:05
Speaker 1: is warming me up? Yeah. And the reason why did
31:08
Speaker 1: you say? Because it carries the blood to your skin
31:11
Speaker 1: for a second, so it makes you feel flushed. But
31:13
Speaker 1: when it's doing that, it's carrying away from your core.
31:18
Speaker 1: So it's a really bad move in a very cold
31:20
Speaker 1: weather situation to drink bad And the same with smokes. Uh.
31:25
Speaker 1: Cigarette does not warm you up in any way. And
31:29
Speaker 1: Yale University said that the smokers have a greater risk
31:32
Speaker 1: for frostbite because nicotine just slows everything down and it's
31:36
Speaker 1: even gonna make your blood pump slower and make it
31:39
Speaker 1: harder to get your digits and your wee wei. Yeah,
31:43
Speaker 1: so chuck, I feel like we uh, we probably saved
31:45
Speaker 1: some lives here today, I got another little thing. I
31:49
Speaker 1: found an infographic that was cute that had a couple
31:53
Speaker 1: of things that I didn't know. And this isn't frost
31:55
Speaker 1: bite necessarily, but I just thought it was interesting. Uh,
31:59
Speaker 1: do you know why your nose runs when it's cold? No,
32:03
Speaker 1: in trying to warm up cold air on the way
32:05
Speaker 1: to the lungs. Extra blood flow within the nostrils leads
32:09
Speaker 1: to more mucus. Oh, that's cute. Eyeballs don't freeze. I
32:15
Speaker 1: didn't know that, thankfully, But but your context can free
32:18
Speaker 1: see your eyeballs though. Oh yeah, and think about that.
32:23
Speaker 1: But your eyeballs don't freeze because they're inside the head. Uh.
32:26
Speaker 1: And your head is not one of your extremities, Like,
32:29
Speaker 1: that's part of the core they wanted. Your body wants
32:32
Speaker 1: to keep your head and warm, um and what else.
32:36
Speaker 1: Ears are great risk because there are no muscles in
32:39
Speaker 1: the ear to produce heat, no major muscles. And finally,
32:43
Speaker 1: your cheeks are gonna turn red because again those surface
32:46
Speaker 1: blood vessels dilate when it falls below ten degrease celsius.
32:50
Speaker 1: I saw that your buttocks are actually at risk as well,
32:54
Speaker 1: especially if you're like watching a football game on aluminum
32:58
Speaker 1: bleachers or something like that. Oh yeah, because it's that
33:02
Speaker 1: material is going to wick the heat right out of
33:05
Speaker 1: your butt. Yeah, right out of your tuckas yep. Yeah,
33:10
Speaker 1: so that's frost bite. To stay indoors, drink some hot chocolate. Yeah,
33:14
Speaker 1: watch that Brown's game on your big wide screen, and
33:17
Speaker 1: drink a hot toddy. There you go. Emily had a
33:20
Speaker 1: toddy last night because she's sick. Oh yeah, it was work. Yeah.
33:23
Speaker 1: Her big push now is on natural remedies, and so
33:27
Speaker 1: she looked up like a good old fashioned toddy recipe.
33:30
Speaker 1: Does she like it? She loved it. They're really great
33:33
Speaker 1: when you're sick. Yeah, I imagine takes the edge off.
33:38
Speaker 1: She had a little ginger water to hers and um,
33:42
Speaker 1: it was nice and spicy, hot and warm to the touch.
33:47
Speaker 1: So let's hope she stays sick for a while. Well,
33:49
Speaker 1: feel better at Molly's not gonna enjoy those as well?
33:51
Speaker 1: Are you one for you? One for me? Actually, I
33:54
Speaker 1: just had a bourbon. I know, you don't have to
33:57
Speaker 1: be sick out of the hot toddy. They do help
33:59
Speaker 1: when you are the Yeah. Uh. If you want to
34:03
Speaker 1: know more about frost bite, you can type that word
34:05
Speaker 1: in the search bar at how stuff Works dot com.
34:07
Speaker 1: Since I said search parts time for listener mail, I'm
34:13
Speaker 1: gonna call this Ham Radio, I guess, oh burglar tape.
34:18
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Hey guys, A big fan of the podcast.
34:20
Speaker 1: I was excited to share some knowledge from my area
34:22
Speaker 1: of expertise in the Ham Radio. You mentioned burglar tape.
34:26
Speaker 1: I've worked in the electronic security and fire protection industry
34:28
Speaker 1: for sixteen years. You can remember my first exposure to
34:32
Speaker 1: burglary tape. Back before motion detectors and acoustic glass brake detectors,
34:37
Speaker 1: burglar tape tape was used to trigger an alarm if
34:40
Speaker 1: a window was broken. Didn't that what we figured? Or was?
34:44
Speaker 1: It is essentially a thin foil tape that was glued
34:46
Speaker 1: to a window using a clear liquid glue. The tape
34:48
Speaker 1: was applied around the perimeter of the window, directly on
34:51
Speaker 1: the glass. The foil tape would then be tied down
34:54
Speaker 1: to a two wire circuit at one of the corners
34:56
Speaker 1: of the window frame. The foil completed the circuit, so
34:59
Speaker 1: if the oil was severed from the window breaking, the
35:02
Speaker 1: circuit would open and initiate an alarm. Technology has left
35:05
Speaker 1: burglar tape behind. Is there much less invasive means to
35:09
Speaker 1: detect a window breaking today, but as far as being
35:12
Speaker 1: a ham radio antenna makes perfect sense. Nice. That is
35:15
Speaker 1: from Josh Hines. Hey Josh, all right, fellow Josh, where
35:20
Speaker 1: you go? Uh? If you want to get in touch
35:23
Speaker 1: with us like Josh did, you can tweet to us
35:26
Speaker 1: at Josh um Clark or at s Y s K podcast.
35:30
Speaker 1: You can hang out with Chuck at Charles W. Chuck
35:33
Speaker 1: Bryant on Facebook and at Facebook dot com, slash Stuff
35:36
Speaker 1: you Should Know, send us an email to Stuff podcast
35:39
Speaker 1: at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined
35:42
Speaker 1: us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should
35:44
Speaker 1: Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of
35:52
Speaker 1: other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com