Anchorage Daily News

David Hokenson, Joseph Anglin and Bijay Tamang are painfully -- and gratefully -- aware of what a difference personal flotation devices can make if you suddenly find yourself in cold Alaska water.

Three years ago, the three young Anchorage residents set off down Eklutna Lake in a canoe loaded with camping gear, a cooler of food and cameras.

They paddled about three miles down the lake before turning broadside to the waves to look at a possible campsite along the southwest shore. The canoe swamped. They found themselves in the water.

All, however, were wearing PFDs. All managed to swim 400 to 800 yards to shore. Except for cramped muscles from the cold water and exertion, they were fine.

"The saving grace for them is that all three of them were wearing PFDs," Chugach Park ranger Dan Amyot said at the time. "They swam out.''

Danger lurks across Alaska this time of year as warm summer temperatures and more than 18 hours of daylight put more and more people atop cold water. If trouble strikes, those who are prepared often save themselves. Those who aren't can die pursuing activities they consider relatively safe.

And that's why the state boating safety office came up with the idea of producing a 25-minute DVD called "Cold Water Boating" about cold water immersion and distributing it free to Alaskans. So far, more than 2,000 copies have been handed out.

The idea is to show people what happens when you end up in cold water.

COLD KILLS

"The events were staged, but the reactions of people and how they perform in the water was real," said Jeff Johnson, state boating law administrator for the Alaska Office of Boating Safety. "I honestly think if boaters know better what happens in an immersion event, people will say, 'There are reasons for me to wear a life jacket that I didn't know before.' "

The state recruited two experts in cold-water immersion and video production, Dr. Gordon Giesbrecht and Ted Rankine.

Giesbrecht, an authority on freezing to death, believes the best way to study the effects of cold on the human body is to get intimate with the elements. So the 45-year-old physiologist and director of the University of Manitoba's Laboratory for Exercise and Environmental Medicine has lowered his body below 95 degrees, the threshold for hypothermia, a mind- and body-numbing 33 times.

"I'm the scientist who does things for real, to make sure I really know what I'm talking about," said Giesbrecht, who has produced three educational videos for the Discovery Channel.

Even though five out of six Alaska boating deaths in Alaska are the result of a boat capsizing or somebody falling overboard, few people consider the possibility that they will end up in the water when they step on a boat, said Johnson.

He says 95 percent of coastal paddlers wear life jackets, but only about 6 percent of adults in open power boats less than 26 feet do so.

"Guys running a skiff up and down the Kenai River are just not thinking an immersion event is likely, and they're right," Johnson said. "The problem is we lose (several) of them a year."

One pervasive attitude, Johnson said, is that wearing a life jacket doesn't matter because you'll die of hypothermia anyway if you fall in the water.

"The fact is, most people who capsize or fall overboard don't live long enough to get hypothermia if they're not wearing a life jacket, he said. They drown before that happens because they lose the ability to use their hands and feet due to the cold.

"It's just a simple fact of not being able to self rescue," Johnson said. "Your hands and feet get so cold you can't function. That happens in 10 minutes."

The state spent $60,000 to make the video.

WATER IS SHOCKING

Ironically, said Joe McCullough of the Alaska Office of Boating Safety, activities that appear dangerous -- white-water boating, for instance -- don't kill many people in Alaska.

"That's just not how they die,'' he said.

Most white-water kayakers and rafters recognize the danger and prepare accordingly. Depending on water conditions, many wear not only life jackets but dry suits and helmets.

On Sixmile Creek on the Kenai Peninsula, where commercial rafting operators require clients to wear such safety gear, people regularly get tossed out of boats into cold, raging water and live to tell about it. Outfitted against cold-water shock, they are able to help rescue themselves.

A dry suit, or even a wet suit, can extend functional time in the water into hours. But even without a suit, there are more opportunities for self-rescue than some people believe.

The water may be cold, and it will certainly shock you. But the idea that anyone who falls in has only minutes to live is a fiction.

Even in water at or near freezing, a person in good health will remain conscious for at least 15 minutes, and the time increases as water temperatures rise. Alaska summer water temperatures are usually at least 40 degrees.

And survival times increase dramatically if people can get all, or even part, of their bodies out of water that sucks out heat 32 times as fast as air. Getting up on top of an overturned boat, for instance, substantially boosts survival time.

In 2006, there were 48 boating accidents resulting in 13 deaths in Alaska, a state in which there were 49,533 registered boats, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Both the deaths and accidents were down from 2005 -- when 20 died in 54 accidents.

Had the people who died been interviewed before their fateful accidents, said McCullough, the vast majority would have seen no life-threatening danger in what they were doing.

"Only a quarter of them would even have hinted that they were doing anything dangerous or wrong," McCullough said.

'CONSISTENT PROBLEM'

Unaware of the threat from Alaska water so cold it can stop people from breathing, these people see no real need to put on a PFD.

"There's one consistent problem," McCullough said. "They're not wearing life jackets. They go in the water. They can't breathe. They die."

The phenomenon of people falling into the water, dropping beneath the surface and never resurfacing is directly related to the shock of cold water.

The initial cold shock, according to the U.S. Coast Guard, provokes an immediate gasp reflex of up to two to three quarts of air, or water if your head is submerged. If you inhale water, it's unlikely you will come to the surface unless you are wearing a life jacket.

Even if they're lucky enough to avoid inhaling water, people without PFDs face a cascade of problems as soon as they claw their way to the surface:

• Cold shock;

• Swimming failure;

• Hypothermia; and

• Post-rescue collapse.

Signs of cold shock include an accelerating heart rate and hyperventilation. Heart attacks can happen. Many report feeling panicky.

Still if one hangs in there, the problems for healthy people ease in three to five minutes. During this period, boating safety officials suggest people simply concentrate on staying afloat until their body adjusts to the shock.

What happens next depends largely on the temperature of the water and the health of the person who has fallen into it.

Swimming failure can set in after three to 30 minutes of immersion, according to the Coast Guard. If that happens, you'll be unable to make forward progress and keep your head above water when this occurs."

Especially in Alaska's cold water, a life jacket is key to survival.

GET YOUR COPY OF DVD

• Pick up: Available at Department of Natural Resources Public Information Center, 550 W. Seventh Ave., Suite 1260 or in Fairbanks at 3700 Airport Way.

• By mail: E-mail the public information center at dnr.pic@alaska.gov office to request a copy be mailed for a small postage and handling fee. The office will need a phone number to call you to collect this fee. Requests for mail orders can also be placed by calling the Anchorage information center office at 269-8400 (dial 0)

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