Rain Gear The degree to which you should be concerned with rain gear will depend in large part on your local environmental conditions. When I was in the desert southwest—Arizona and southern New Mexico, as well as portions of southern Nevada and Utah, and a little bit of time in my youth in the Hill Country of central Texas—I never really worried much about rain gear, while when I was in the southern highlands, I was gravely concerned about it, especially in spring and autumn. In southwestern Alaska, or the Pacific Northwest, the problem definitely looms large, while here in the Northern Rockies, I find it’s just not really that big of a deal. The general concern about rain gear, of course, is how to stay dry when it rains. The simple reality is, no single garment—or material—is “best” for all wet weather conditions, and often times, the best solution is to simply accept that you’re going to get wet, and just deal with it. In fact, in a heavy, sustained downpour, the only realistically effective way of staying dry, or of getting dry once already wet, is to simply get out of the rain. That’s not always an option, of course, so we have to accept that sometimes, you’re just going to get wet. As a young soldier, in the Army’s premier special operations light infantry unit, we were afforded the opportunity to be issued some of the “best” equipment available at the time.1 Despite being issued high-end Gore-Tex parkas and rain jackets, as well as the older urethane-coated nylon rain jackets, more often than not, when it rained, we just got wet, and kept going. While certainly not acceptable to most civilians—and not even ideal for young, tough as nails soldiers—it did teach us, very quickly, that getting wet, even in “cold” weather, hovering just around the freezing mark, wasn’t going to kill us. More than once, I’ve been soaked to the bone in a torrential downpour, as the temperature sank to the low-thirties, and I found myself still steaming the moisture away as we continued whatever we were doing. It was not until we stopped moving—typically in position to conduct an ambush, in which movement was verboten for obvious reasons, or in an ORP,2 while the leaders finished planning a raid mission, would we really begin to get cold. Even then, while shivering uncontrollably, and feeling like you were surely going to die from exposure, most of the time, you ended up being just fine. Of course, that’s not always the case: there have been multiple times when soldiers, even in training conditions, succumbed to cold weather injuries requiring hospitalization, or even death.3 I’ve dealt with cold-weather injuries myself, in the military, and after, from both hypothermia and frostbite. As a young private, I experienced second-degree frostbite on both feet, an injury that I still suffer consequences from, anytime it gets cold, and I once went hypothermic during a field exercise in which it rained for six hours before clearing off overnight, and the temperatures dropping into the teens, as the wind picked up to near hurricane force. I managed to find an old tank track in the mud to hunker down in, in order to avoid the wind, but the bottom two inches of the rut were filled with half-frozen water. I shivered and shook all night long, until stand-to…but I didn’t die. Hypothermia The International Commission on Alpine Rescue (ICAR) classifies hypothermia in five stages, based on core body temperature. Each stage can be determined, under field conditions, using clinical diagnoses, in the field, even when core temperature readings may not be feasible. Class I: Mild Hypothermia occurs at 89.5-90F. Symptoms are normal or near normal consciousness, and uncontrollable shivering. In other words, you can’t force yourself to stop shivering. This is reasonably common in cold weather, and may occur in moderate temperatures, especially when wet. Mild hypothermia can typically be treated simply by changing any wet clothing for dry, properly insulating layers, and providing hot, sweet drinks. While caffeinated drinks are contraindicated, because of the vasoconstrictive effects, which reduce the flow of warmed blood to and from the extremities—which the patient is already suffering from as the body robs blood from the extremities in an attempt to maintain core survival functions—hot, sweetened herbal teas are a solid solution. Adding a dollop of butter to the tea can also help by dramatically increasing the caloric value of the drink. If the patient is otherwise healthy and uninjured, once dry and insulated, even gentle physical exertion, such as isometric exercises, if that is all the security situation will permit, can quickly raise the core temperature back to a healthy range. If the patient is unable to move though, due to illness or injury, external heat sources from hot packs or heated water bottles, placed in proximity to the armpits and groin will help to prevent further cooling. Additionally, by warming the blood near the body’s core, it will prevent worse injury, by spreading that warmth back to the extremities. Class II: Moderate Hypothermia. This occurs at a core body temperature of 82.4-89.5F. At this point, shivering has stopped, and mental functions are severely, noticeably impaired. This can range from mildly slurred speech to the inability to answer basic medical response questions such as name, location, time, and activity, i.e. “What’s your name? Do you know my name?” “Where are we? What are we doing?” and “What time of day is it?” At Class II, careful handling becomes imperative to the treatment of the victim, to avoid deterioration and the induction of cardiac arrhythmia because of heart muscle irritability due to the cold. Active assistance from the patient should be discouraged and minimized. As with mild hypothermia, wet clothing should be replaced with dry, and external heat sources applied as soon as possible. If the patient is still cooperative and capable, hot, sweet drinks—under direct supervision of the care provider—should be administered. If feasible and possible, hospitalization should be a priority. Otherwise, under survival conditions, getting them to a place where they can be allowed to recover, in warm conditions, with a warming fire and adequate food and drink, will be the only viable solution to healing. Class III: Severe Hypothermia occurs at core body temperatures between 75.2-82.4F. At this point, the victim will be unconscious, or unresponsive to interrogation or other stimuli, and the detection of vital signs, such as pulse and respiration, under field conditions, may be difficult. You should work to ascertain the presence or absence of these signs of life for at least a full minute before determining them to be absent. Read the rest: https://www.patreon.com/posts/field...paign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link Continue reading...
