What would you have done?

[Jim Kalafus]

>Party-poopers will tell you that drinking booze shortens your life in freezing waters. It's odd that anecdotal evidence suggests the opposite.

Well...that's because the one time in ten thousand that a drunk falls into a river and does not quickly succumb to hypothermia makes the news. The other 9999 times, when he or she dies quickly, is not newsworthy. So, the anecdotal evidence favors the miraculous few and not the overwhelming majority.

My former neighbor, a raging drunk, toppled over in her driveway and got snowed under. Her husband found her...presumably after thinking "what was that bump?" as he pulled down the snowy driveway... and she DID recover. However, no one knew how long she was napping in the snowdrift so 'miracle' cant really be applied. Our...beloved..."Town Character" DID freeze to death, when he sat down in the doorway to the liquor store, fell asleep, and got snowed under.

....gotta love small town living ca 1980.....

>I'll handcuff myself to Bod G and Jim K. At least then I'll have some entertaining argument to listen to as I go down.

Sounds good to me.

 

[J.P. Wachtel]

i would ofcourse assist women and children, and then i would sneak into the lounge bar and drink drink drink drink, as if theres was no tommorow... then i would either collapse all tipsy and intoxicated and go down with the ship, or i would manage to jump out unconsiously drunk and maybe.. just maybe.. survive on the cold water with warm alcohol in my blood, kinda like what baker joughin did, only that he had his own flasks of whisky in his bedroom

 

[Jeremy Aufderheide]

Joughin's survival was miraculous since alcohol thins the blood thus allowing hypothermia to set in quicker. Your fate would be sealed if you were drunk.

 

[J.P. Wachtel]

Yes i am aware of that.. Walter Lord's book explained it pretty well, i was just joking, honestly, i would either stick around assist some women, and make it for lifeboat C, or i would just get into the early Murdoch boats, honestly... I prefer getting shot or stabbed then drowning or frezing to deTh..

 

[Rocky Whiteside]

I rather freeze to death in the water. Much more peaceful.

 

[Jeremy Aufderheide]

It's just the pain of when you first hit the water. The pool at my health club is frequently under-heated and, while it's not 28-degrees it's mighty cold (I swear I saw an iceberg float by one day). But let me tell you that even going into a cold pool *hurts* and hurts for a while.

I've read that drowning is a peaceful way to go after the initial struggle. You just mentally float off to sleep.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I've read that drowning is a peaceful way to go after the initial struggle.<<

If it's all the same to the rest of you, I'd just as soon make my passage from this world to whatever lies beyond soundly asleep and warm in my bed.

Drowning, freezing...uhhh...I'll take a pass on that!

 

[Jim Kalafus]

Okay.

When you enter freezing water, your heart rate initially accelerates and you are in excruciating pain. Your ability to think clearly deteriorates rapidly, and you lose manual dexterity. This is accompanied by shivering, aka muscle contractions. As your body core temperature drop below 87 degrees, your heart beat becomes irregular.

The pain comes in waves, reaching unbearable intensity. At that point, your blood vessels will dilate and bring a wave of blood back to the surface of your skin. The pain recedes, and the water seems to feel warmer. Then, your blood vessels constrict, and the process begins again. Finally, to protect your core, your body abandons your extremities to frostbite and your blood vessels remain constricted.

As your core temperature continues to drop, you will involuntarily evacuate your bladder. When core temperature has passed below 80F, you will be most incoherent and also prone to have visions. And once it has dropped below 75F, chances are that you will not survive.

This can take a very long time to run its course. Witness the survivors of the DC/Potomac plane crash, who were in 35F water for twenty or more minutes and most of it captured in real time by TV cameras.

Drowning. Extreme fear and seemingly* complete loss of mental control. Violent struggling, attempts to swim and, just before blacking out, a amazing sense of euphoria, sometimes accompanied by auditory hallucination in the form of music.

*What is interesting about this is that rescue workers are noticing that you CAN snap people out of the terminal panic...by scaring them. NOT something that is easy to study (who would want to volunteer?) but rescuers who have a commanding presense and who scream and curse at drowning people like a Marine drill sergeant HAVE had success in breaking the blind panic. But, as I said you cant REALLY study that because no one will volunteer and you cant really COUNT on it, because not all rescuers are cut out to be Marine drill sergeants.

 

[Rocky Whiteside]

... And I take back what I said.

 

[Senan Molony]

I think you'd be a really good Rescue Drill Sergeant, Jim.

You'd tell them what a really shsit job they were doing at dying...

.

 

[Michael Cundiff]

Tear down sets of curtains, grab as many pillow cases as available coupled with shower curtains and womens shower caps, then head to the bakery
and stuff as much bread into the pillow cases
as needed wrapped with curtains & caps, cover the whole ensemble with the draperies, lasso them with whatever is available and insert the *raft* into the freezing sea at the last possible moment. Would be great to see Bear Grylls ("Man vs. Wild") in such a scenario as a sinking ship.

Michael Cundiff
NV, USA

 

[Augusto Félix Solari]

I would jump next to lifeboat nº 4 and get rescued...

 

[Talira Greycrest]

I'd stay on board with my family. Would rather die alongside my loved ones rather than survive and find that I've lost people I care about. There are reports that a Third Class passenger, Stella Sage, boarded a lifeboat, but got back out when other members of the family couldn't join her. From what I've read, the Sages were the largest family on board. All eleven perished with only the body of 12-year-old Anthony being recovered.

 

[Harland Duzen]

1): Do a Charles Joughin and drink some alcohol to fortify myself (but not too much in case I ended up drunk).

2) Stay on the Starboard side with Murdoch to heighten my chances.

3) Try to help others into boats.

4) Take as many photos as possible once in the lifeboat and having help as many others as possible.

5) Force Lifeboat I'm in to go back and help.

 

[TimTurner]

Charles Joughin didn't drink a substantial amount of alcohol, and what he did drink was burned up running up and down the staircases. This has been pretty well dispelled even during the Senate hearings when it was introduced.

I wrote up his schedule here:
Issues relating to the ship's breaking in two

and amended it here (later in the same discussion):
Issues relating to the ship's breaking in two

The main problem with drinking alcohol is that it makes you feel warm by moving blood to your extremities. This actually cools your core body down faster when in freezing water, so you die of hypothermia sooner.

 

[Harland Duzen]

Thanks for the response, but if so, how did he survive so long?

 

[Ioannis Georgiou]

Thanks for the response, but if so, how did he survive so long?

Because he was mainly out of the water as the others who were aboard collapsible B.

 

[TimTurner]

The most likely is that he wasn't in the water as long as reported. He probably lost track of time in the freezing water and it seemed like he was floating for hours, when it was only a period of many minutes.

 

[Kyle Naber]

I would be concerned until the boats began to launch and the rockets first fired. If I didn't hop in the first few lifeboats which allowed a few men in, I would probably make my way to the aft well deck. The poop was far too packed and people could barely move up there. I would wait until the break up, and then jump off the starboard side. I wouldn't want to get caught up in a heap of people being thrown on top of me. I would then swim as far as I could until getting tired and/or cold and then float on my back for a while. I would keep swimming until I reached the nearest boat and picked up out of the water.

 

[RmS_TItAnIc]

If you are like me you have always wondered what you would do in the Titanic Situation. So tell me, would would you do?