Sign up for the paNOW newsletter

UPDATED: Frostbite and hypothermia no joke reminds Parkland Ambulance

Jan 28, 2013 | 5:32 AM

It’s an unfortunate story, but serves as a reminder to bundle up.

On Saturday at 11:21 a.m. Parkland Ambulance Paramedics responded to a severely hypothermic man who was located on the 300-block of 17th Street West. He was near death and suffered from extreme frostbite.

He was also not dressed properly for the weather.

He was discovered by bystanders and it’s still unknown as to how he ended up outside, but Prince Albert Police say alcohol may be a factor.

The 22-year-old man was taken to Victoria Hospital in serious condition and remains there in serious, but stable condition.

Prince Albert Police Sergeant Rhonda Meakin said the man is not homeless. Police are investigating to make sure there's “nothing suspicious” in relation to the area, she said.

“Apparently he was very, very cold, with a lower body temperature, so they were warming him up,” she said Monday afternoon.

paNOW took the time to talk with Lyle Karasiuk with Parkland Ambulance about the dangers of frostbite and hypothermia and what residents can do to keep safe.

Karasiuk started simply by saying if it is terribly cold outside the first order of business is stay indoors if possible.

He said if you do have to venture out, dress for the weather.

“It doesn’t need to be really cold for people to get frostbite, obviously when its colder frostbite and cold related injuries happen quicker,” Karasiuk said.

He used, as an example, heading out to the ski trail or toboggan hill on a day where it’s – 15 C.

“You may be out there for an hour or more and maybe you shed some clothes because you’ve gotten warm and all of a sudden you get a little chilled. You can get hypothermic because your body is trying to get rid of the heat, but you’re not dressing for the weather, so you can loss heat faster than you think you are,” Karasiuk explained.

Frostbite starts when you start to see redness of the skin or fingers or whatever skin is exposed to the elements.

Karasiuk said if it does not go unchecked you’ll start to feel a burning sensation and that burning sensation will proceed to a white wax appearance, in essence the flesh is starting to freeze.

“It will then depend on, of course, a number of factors: how cold it is, how big you are, the bigger the person the more time it will take for them to cool off, but certainly exposed skin can freeze and then of course we add wind chill and all those other factors that go with it,” Karasiuk said.

He said people commonly rub their hands together when they become cold because friction generates heat.

Karasiuk said that’s actually the worst thing you can do to warm up a frozen or frostbitten area.

“Your body is made up of roughly about 60 per cent water. When water freezes, think of an ice cube, it expands. So the water under the skin, in the small vessels in your skin, start to expand in forms crystals. Crystals, just like taking a piece of sandpaper and rubbing it between your hands, can cause the vessels to break. So you can incur minor bruising, or what we refer to as minor internal bleed by rubbing your hands, rubbing the cold skin.”

He said if your hands are cold, blowing warm air into them or putting them in a pocket is a safe alternative.

He said the easiest way, if it can be done, is to let the skin warm to room temperature normally or get a hot tepid bath going or a shower or anything you can warm them up with.

Once the skin is at a normal temperature and there is no breakage in the skin then you may not have to seek medical treatment.

“But if you start to notice some blisters or the skin itself cracks therefore causing some bleeding then you do need to seek some medical treatment for that. Cover it up, treat it like an open wound, so find a nice clean dressing and cover it up,” Karasiuk said.

He went on to say you can also use an antibiotic ointment if it’s a small area, like a tip of finger.
Karasiuk used a weird example to explain how important it is to be safe and warm.

“Human flesh is just like taking a roast out of the freezer for lack of a better term. At home maybe you take something out of the freezer for dinner that you’re serving to your family, but for whatever reason, you know, the kids get busy, the hockey game is running late and you don’t get a chance to get home to put the meat in the fridge; well you got this roast that you took out. What do we normally do with it?”

“We know that if we put the meat back in the freezer it tends to spoil. The same sort of concept, ironically, will happen with human flesh. If it has a chance to refreeze it will start to cause more problems and what we call become gangrene and in essence rots, for lack of a better term.”

He said if you are stranded somewhere on a snow machine and you are going to have to walk some kind of distance and you don’t have the opportunity to warm up and thaw out completely, in other words be safe and secure, then warming up partially is not a good idea.

“It’s basic first aid that we teach folks that if they’re froze solid its best to keep them frozen, as strange as that sounds, until you can get somewhere that you can thaw them out properly, such as a health centre, a medical clinic, a hospital emergency room, somewhere because when tissue is frozen it is extremely painful when it (thaws) that we need to then start to have some control of the pain medication.”

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid