CSB #4 How would people have survived the cold waters when the Titanic sunk?

The Titanic sinking. A life boat can be seen rescuing people in the lower right hand corner of the picture.

Definitions:

• Hypothermia- the condition that one will get if his or her body temperature is lower than the normal temperature required for the usual bodily functions to occur. This condition can causes death, if the individual is not taken out of the cold environment immediatly and set in a warm place to be warmed.
• Thermoregulation- the control of the temperature in the body
• The Titanic- It was a ship who made it's maden voyage in 1912. It was boasted to be "unsinkable, but on its first voyage, it sunk, killing many people because there were not enough lifeboats on board. The number of people who died is more than two times the number of people who survived. It was an awful event. 

Summary:

The book Titanic, The Long Night, by Diane Hoh is about the horrific disaster that occured on April 17, 1912, when the supposedly unsinkable Titanic sunk in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The book focuses on four individuals throughout the journey of the ship, and in the end, the reader discovers who lives and who dies. The book is quite sad as several relationships are torn apart from this event. However, the part of the book that this summary will be focusing on is the part about  a young man named Max Wittaker. Since he was a man he was not allowed to board one of the few lifeboats and had to stay on the sinking Titanic. After the titanic had sunk, Max was left floating in the below freezing water, wearing his life jacket and a coat. After a few minutes in the water, he struggled to remove his coat, saying that it  was soaked through and only added extra weight. The book made it seam that Max would for sure die, but in fact, Max survived. The book says that Max lived because he was saved by a man who had consumed a very large amount of alcohol while on the ship, who was swimming in the water near him. The man said that he was perfectly warm, although he was swimming in the ice cold water. The man found Max, and dragged him to the nearest life boat because he was to frozen to move. Max waited in the boat, in the freezing night, with the few other survivors until another boat came to rescue them. The book says that this man was Max's savior and that the man was able to rescue Max because he had drunken a lot of alcohol before getting in the water.  However, I have heard that it is a myth that alcohol helps one survive very cold environments. As well, I would think that Max would have died of hypothermia in the water, or sitting in the boat. In the discussion section, I will investigate these points. 

Discussion:

I did some research on the topic of the myth that alcohol helps warm a person in cold environments. I found this idea to be false, as one creditable site from the University of Minnesota says that alcohol can actually increase the risk of hypothermia in a cold environment. It explains that alcohol can aid in lowering the body temperature of an individual, causing hypothermia to start faster than if the individual had not been under the influence. Another site explains that alcoholic beverages make it hard for people to recognize that they are experiencing hypothermia because the condition numbs the body and sometimes effects the ability of the individual to think sensibly. Also, alcohol worsens an individual's thermoregulation, so the person would have a harder time warming themselves back up. The man who saved Max had been drinking lots of alcohol, so he would have died of hypothermia faster than Max, who had nothing to drink. He would have never been able to save Max, because alcohol also makes ones motor skills function poorly, so he would have had a hard time pulling Max through the cold water. In real life, it is likely that neither Max nor the drunk man would have survived.

I also did some research on how long it takes for a person to catch and die of hypothermia. According to this information, Max would not have survived floating in the subfreezing water as long as he did. First, the book makes it seem that he was in the water for a while, about fifteen minutes. According to the University of Maryland, if one is suddenly put into a cool environment, as Max was when he fell into the water from the sinking ship, the hypothermia may only take several minutes to become quite severe, because his body temperature would drop so drastically and quickly. Max was in the water for a while, and that period of time would have been enough for him to develop severe hypothermia, and even die. If he had survived, he would have most likely died of hypothermia while sitting in the boat. This same site says that if one who has experienced hypothermia is not brought to a warm place quickly, he or she will most likely die. Max sat in the freezing boat for about 12 hours, therefore, he would have probably died there if he had survived the water. Plus, he did not even have his coat when he was in the boat, so he would have been very cold. As well, the fact that he took the coat off while in the water is a sign of hypothermia, because when an individual becomes hypothermic they will feel as if they are too hot, even though it is quite the opposite. Most likely, he was feeling too hot, so he removed his coat, which would have further cooled him down, which would make him die of hypothermia faster. 

It was interesting for me to investigate this myth about alcohol and hypothermia, because people have told me two different things about it: alcohol helps warm people, or alcohol contributes to hypothermia. Now, I can clarify that the second one is correct, and I find it quite fascinating. Although I understand that if this book had not been fiction, both of those man would be dead, but I appreciated that the author made them live because otherwise the book would have been too sad because so many people died. 

Questions:

The book that I read. 

• This book was only written in 1998, and in that time, they knew that Alcohol contributes to hypothermia. Didn't the author, Diane Hoh know this? Did she choose to be scientifically inacurate to make the book a bit happier? The fact that she was wrong with her information makes me doubt the historical information that she included about the Titanic and it's sinking. 
• Why does this myth still exsist, although it has been proven several times over to be false?

Citation: 

• Book:
• Hoh, Diane. Titanic, The Long Night. New York: Scholastic Inc., 1998. Print.
• Research:
• University of Minnesota. "Hypothermia Prevention: Survival in Cold Water."
       Minnesota Sea Grant . University of Minnesota Extension, 18 Feb. 2010.
       Web. 8 Jan. 2011. <http://www.seagrant.umn.edu/coastal_communities/
       hypothermia>.
• Alward, Mary. "Warning signs of hypothermia." essortment. N.p., 2002. Web. 8
       Jan. 2011. <http://www.essortment.com/all/warningsignsof_rhjt.htm>.
• University of Maryland. "Hypothermia." University of Maryland Medical Center.
       University of Maryland, n.d. Web. 9 Jan. 2011. <http://www.umm.edu/
       altmed/articles/hypothermia-000092.htm>
• Pictures:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Titanic_Long_Night.jpg
• http://cdn.crooksandliars.com/files/uploads/2008/10/Titanic%20sinking_4aae2_0.jpg