120 Degree Safety Rule
Cold Water Immersion
It is a common occurrence that boating accidents happen. The thing you cannot determine is at what time these accidents will happen. In many states fishing or boating during cold seasons is fairly normal. The only problem is that when the air and water are both cold it becomes 10x more dangerous. Cold water can decrease heat in the body 25x faster than cold air.
Often people can confuse warm air temperatures with safe to swim water. This is often not the case especially in the rivers and lakes that are fed of springs and mountain run off. Water temperatures can remain below 60 degrees year around for many rivers and lakes.
A typical rule of thumb is that a person should not enter the water without proper gear (wetsuit/drysuit) if the air and water temperature doesn’t exceed 120 degrees.
When people fall into cold water there are a few responses that happen immediately. The first is cold water shock response. The body tenses and the person will typically gasp for air. If the head is submerged when this happens often the person can swallow in water creating a worse scenario for the victim. If ever faced with this situation the person should immediately try to control their breathing to not increase panic.
Most often victims will die from drowning before hypothermia sets in because they cannot control their bodies energy output. They then waste their remaining energy before a rescue attempt can be made.
The next step will be the vasoconstriction of your body that will take place in order to preserve core heat. This will force the victim to lose control their movements to their hands and feet. This will soon cause shivering, slow breathing, confusion, and drowsiness. Things that can obviously buy you more time when fishing around cold water is to be sure you always have your life jacket on. This will keep your head above water and allow you to float without expending much energy. The next would be to wear a drysuit. Drysuits are used very often for sea & whitewater kayakers as they are most often dealing with cold waters during their activities.
