Dangers of Hypothermia When Camping

Video Transcript

"This clip we want to mention hypothermia. Hypothermia is nature's killing tool. What would happen is if you were crossing a stream and got wet, or even if you're wearing waders in the stream and you got sweaty in them waders and then the temperature drops. Because you'll have a forty to fifty degree temperature drop in the mountains, when that temperature drops the moisture you have in your legs or in your clothing will cause you to suffer from hypothermia. With hypothermia, if your body temperature drops ten degrees, your mind no longer functions. You wouldn't even be able to recognize your car, you wouldn't be able to recognize your children because of the effects of hypothermia. If your body temperature gets below eighty degrees, your brain functions do not work anymore and you cannot think clearly. Where you'll actually get lost five feet from your car because your system is being shut down. And you can't recognize your car as being your place of safety. Even experienced guides have trouble with hypothermia. In one hunt, we had a guide that came into camp. He left his horses on the other side of the ridge so he had to walk down the mountain on the other side. He brought a hunter into camp, dropped him off and he went to go get his horses. Well the walk down the mountain and up the other side, he got extremely sweaty. And he was just wearing blue jeans like I am today, because it was nice and warm out. When he got to his horses, the temperature dropped down to twenty degrees. And he had to ride the horse trail, had to ride six miles around the mountain to get back to camp. By the time he got back to camp, his jeans were froze to his legs. He couldn't get off the horse. I had to fireman carry him off the horse into the tent where we could thaw him out so he could recover. So what we're going to cover in the next couple clips is how to be prepared for these type of situations, so you're not caught out in a brush and suffering and you can make it back in a safe manner."