Editor’s note: This story was written by Cindy Ellen Hill, a law and policy writer and attorney in Middlebury.
The hiker who died on the night of Jan. 9, 2012, on the Emily Proctor Trail in Ripton after being reported overdue by his family succumbed to the cold. Kathy Duclos, the aunt of 19-year-old Levi Duclos of New Haven, reports that Detective Sgt. Robert Patten of the Vermont State Police has advised the family that the final autopsy report, completed by the Vermont Medical Examiner’s office on Feb. 28, indicates the cause of death as hypothermia. Patten further indicated that the toxicology report – a series of tests to detect chemicals in the bloodstream – was completely clean, according to Kathy Duclos.
Despite Patten’s statement to the press on Jan. 10 to the effect that Levi had a broken leg, he had suffered no immobilizing injuries, only minor contusions and abrasions, Duclos said. Time of death cannot be definitively determined in a hypothermia case.
Window of recovery
Hypothermia is a drop in core body temperature brought about when the body loses temperature faster than heat is being produced through normal bodily processes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hypothermia is most common in extremely cold temperatures, but can also occur with prolonged exposure to moderate temperatures, especially if the person is submerged or has become wet from rain or sweat.
According to data archived on MesoWest, the national atmospheric condition reporting service of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah, temperatures were in the upper 30s when Levi left his New Haven home mid-day. By 11 p.m., temperatures were only slightly cooler in the valley, but mountain temperatures are on average 3.57 degrees Fahrenheit cooler for every 1,000 foot rise in elevation. On the spine of the Green Mountains, where the Emily Proctor Trail meets the Long Trail at 3,700 feet, the temperature was most likely 20 degrees or below. The precise adjustment for temperature with elevation “depends on the time of day and the weather conditions,” according to Nolan Atkins, chair of the Department of Atmospheric Science at Lyndon State College. The Lyndon College weather station data indicate that in Burke, at elevations similar to that upmountain in Ripton, temperatures were in the mid-teens during the night of Jan. 9-10.
People who spend extended amounts of time outdoors exposed to cool temperatures, including outdoor recreationalists and homeless persons, are particularly susceptible to hypothermia, the CDC reports. In addition to Levi Duclos, a number of homeless persons in Vermont have died of hypothermia during the relatively mild winter of 2011-2012, including 56-year-old Paul O’Toole and 57-year-old Thomas Keenan, both in Burlington.
“Our body has a thermo-regulation system balanced by heat production and heat loss,” says Brian Stoudnour, certified Wilderness First Responder and director of programming for the Hulbert Outdoor Center in Fairlee. The rate at which hypothermia impairs an individual’s mental and physical functions “is very variable, it’s individual,” Stoudnour says. “It would depend on the temperature and the person’s health. The body shuts down systems from the less important to the more important, so the hands and feet feel cold first, then the arms and legs, then the core.”
As body temperature drops, metabolic processes shift to protect the brain. “At 86 degrees, our body becomes the metabolic ice box,” Stoudnour says. “Unconscious, ashen in color, and we may appear pulseless and breathless. The heart will slow and you may not feel pulse rate, but there is some blood being circulated. The body ships all its energy and focus to the brain to keep it running, so if we can re-introduce oxygen back into the system there is still a window of recovery.”
Even when a person with severe hypothermia appears to be dead, attempts at resuscitation should be made, the CDC advises, as individuals suffering from extreme hypothermia can remain alive for a considerable period of time.
The slow progression of hypothermia
When you begin to feel your core getting cold in the outdoors, it’s time to stop and set up a bivouac, Stoudnour advises the students in his Winter Skills and Preparedness classes at the Hulbert Center.
“Set up a tarp like one of those inexpensive mylar emergency blankets. If you continue on after you are feeling cold, then you become mentally impaired then you may be unable to set up camp. You become in denial that you are suffering from early onset of hypothermia,” he said.
Hypothermia progresses slowly, and can cause responses that ironically hasten the negative effects of the cold. “At a body temperature of 97 degrees, our protective instincts start to fade,” Stoudnour says. “There’s a tendency to feel the opposite of cold, and you take layers off due to diminished brain function. Your mood and reactions change. At 96, a constant uncontrollable shiver sets in as a tremor. Your body is attempting to create more body heat. You have decreased fine motor skills, dexterity fails, voice starts to fail. By 92 degrees, the shivering is super intense and you are unable to walk. At 90 degrees the shivering becomes convulsive, like a seizure. You tend to take a fetal position.”
Stoudnour recommends thoughtful preparation to avoid hypothermia during winter recreation. “Wear appropriate clothing, and that means no cotton. If I’m going out for a day hike in the winter, carry a sleeping bag and emergency shelter and whisperlite [backpacking] stove. You really never know, especially in New England, the weather can change so quickly, especially as you go up in elevation.” Staying well-hydrated and eating frequent high-carb snacks also helps keep body temperature up.
Field treatment of a person suffering from hypothermia includes getting them out of wet clothing and wrapping them in a “burrito roll” of tarps and sleeping bags. Hot water bottles or “those small commercial hand warmers placed on the soles of the feet, the groin, armpits and neck” are helpful. “Then get that person to an emergency room as early and as soon as possible,” Stoudnour says. “Time is of the essence.”
