Freeze or Fry?

Every year, someone in the north succumbs to the cold. Freezing to death in the winter is a fairly simple matter for those who are not prepared. Also, there are those who use improper heating devices and end up asphyxiating or incinerating themselves.

Even in warmer weather, hikers and hunters die of hypothermia--a gradual draining away of the body's heat, which may be due to no more than a quick dunking in a lake or prolonged exposure without shelter or proper survival gear.

Although we seldom hear of it up here, in the lower states, according to the January issue of Science Digest, one of the largest causes of death due to cold (after exposure) is heart attacks due to shoveling snow.

Any way you look at it, one advantage that we northerners have is that we seldom have to worry about heatstroke. Those unfortunates in St. Louis and Kansas City in 1980, for example, endured at least two weeks of 100 degree plus temperatures and the mortality rate rose seven percent.

In heatstroke victims, body temperature soars above 106°, the skin becomes hot and dry, and the victim becomes disoriented and comatose. Shock and circulatory collapse then often leads to death.

On the other hand, some hypothermia victims have been known to survive body temperatures below 80°.

I think I'd go that route, rather than with the sweltering heat of the more "moderate" temperatures of our southern neighbors.