Despite what is being said in Florida these days, it is no miracle Nick Schuyler survived a boating accident that claimed the lives of three of his friends -- two of them NFL players.

It would be a miracle, indeed, if events had transpired as Dr. Mark Rumbak, the 24-year-old Schulyer's physician, portrays them.

"To stay in the water for 46 hours and to be alive afterward, I think it is a mircale," Rumback has been widely quoted as saying "I really do."

There is only one small problem with this statement: Schulyer did not spend 46 hours in the 63-degree water of the Gulf of Mexico.

Schulyer had the good sense to crawl up onto the overturned hull of a fishing boat and cling to the lower unit of the motor for 46 hours.

Why is this important?

Because the one thing everyone should know about hypothermia is that water steals body heat 25 times as fast as air. Anything you can do to get your body out of the water -- even here in Alaska, where the water is much colder than the Gulf of Mexico -- will increase your chance of survival by hours or, as in the case of Schulyer, days.

This is no miracle. This is the reality.

Boating accident victims using their heads have managed to survive cold water by climbing atop floating coolers, flotsam, even icebergs. The same goes for snowmobilers who've gone through the ice into the water.

Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht, director of the University of Manitoba's Laboratory for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, has made a career out of trying to spread this message.

Giesbrecht must be going half-crazy at the learning opportunity being lost in the wake of the unfortunate accident off the Florida coast. The story is everywhere, but apparently not many reporters know enough about hypothermia to recognize that explaining why Schuyler is alive -- instead of writing about miracles -- could help save lives.

Everyone ought to know that the first thing to think about if you ever end up in cold water is how to get as much of your body out as possible. Even if you can get only the upper half of your torso up onto something, anything -- even ice -- you will dramatically increase your time of survival.

That said, there is also one other important thing that people in Alaska should understand:

Falling in cold water will not kill you in two minutes or 10 minutes, unless it causes you to have a heart attack. People simply don't go hypothermic that quick. It's an old wive's tale.

There is one heck of a shock when you hit water near the temperature of freezing. Most people experience an immediate reaction that makes them want to inhale. You have to fight that off to keep from swallowing water and get yourself under control, because there will be time to do things.

Even in water near 32 degrees, you will have 15 minutes to half an hour -- depending on your fitness level and body fat -- to react. You can figure on 30 to 60 minutes in water of 40 to 50 degrees. An hour or more in water 50 to 60 degrees, which is more the summer norm in Alaska.

What you do in this time is vital. What you want to do is what Schuyler did. Find some way to get out of the water.

The Coast Guard photos taken of him clinging to the motor on that overturned boat off Florida demonstrate why he is alive today. Whether he was knowledgeable of cold water survival or not, he did the right thing.

Possibly no one understands this better than Giesbrecht, who has jumped into cold, sometimes-ice-filled waters so many times to demonstrate survival techniques that he has been nicknamed "Professor Popsicle."

The advice he gave to Canada AM on the subject of winter survival in cold water should be imprinted in the memory of everyone who ventures outdoors in Alaska for the next two months. This is the height of the snowmachine season here, and the time when people go through the ice into cold water.

Listen to Professor Popsicle on what to do:

"Most people have a completely wrong conception about what happens if you go in ice water. They think that you'll become hypothermic within minutes. And this actually causes people to panic and make bad decisions and make a bad situation worse.

"Really, when you're wearing winter clothing, like you would be on a snowmobile, the average person will have between half an hour to 45 minutes before they actually become clinically hypothermic.

"So don't panic. Keep your wits about you. Get your breathing under control.

"Put your arms up on the ice and kick your legs until your body becomes horizontal, near the surface of the water. And it's actually as simple as that. You just kick your legs and you'll end up coming up like that and then you kick and pull yourself horizontally up on the ice."

If you can continue to crawl out (ice picks help), you can save yourself. But even if you only get halfway out, you will significantly increase the period of time that you can survive until someone arrives to help.

It's no miracle. It's survival.