Quote Originally Posted by IanDarkpeak View Post
Well done and good call Stolly, and of course top effort from Hes and all those who made it round or nearly made it round.
A bit shocked at the Hot water bottle!! not exactly the gold standard treatment for a hypothermic person.

Dry clothes, sleeping bag, shelter, warm sweet drink but NOT DIRECT HEAT TO THE BODY SURFACE! surprised the doc didn't take it away how ever well meaning it was. Part of the process of Hypothermia is to take your blood to the core to protect your vital organs(this is why H victims go white and lips go blue etc) applying direct heat will cause the warm blood from your core to come to your skin flooding your core with colder blood and can put you in to shock.

I'm sure forumite DATT won't mind me mentioning that after falling in a deep bog on bleaklow during a Tankys Trog Race he got very cold and like Stolly made the good call to pack it in. He got himself to the Snake Inn where he called for a lift. in the mean time a cold Datt sat in front of the roaring fire where according to the bar staff he went a very strange colour! and they ran out to the MR parked in the carpark, Luckily it had a paramedic and a doc on board who took him away from the fire and put him in a cas bag BUT he was close to S3 Hypothermia and they were on the verge of calling in an Air ambulance. Warm Slowly not quickly!

Good to hear you are ok Stolly

I've long thought that we ought to have a thread on treatment of Hypothermia. It's probably the biggest problem we can face in the mountains.
Excellent post Ian, I learnt something new from that. I was aware that direct heat was a no no, but had no idea why until you explained it (also explains some odd episodes after warming up after winter runs as well). I take it the idea is to get the body to heat itself up as much as is possible whilst keeping wrapped up etc, rather than warming the person up artificially (so to speak)?