Meet Prof. Popsicle | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Meet Prof. Popsicle

Today's Question
What's the best way to learn to live off the land? answer

Is it better to buy or make a survival kit? answer

Today's Question
What country has the best ratings for eco-tourism? answer

What is the greenest rental car? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine January 2003

Page:

Meet Prof. Popsicle
Gordon Giesbrecht didn't become the world's leading authority on hypothermia by sitting around the campfire. He got there by leaping into frozen lakes, injecting ice water into his veins, and taking lots of very, very cold baths.

By Alisa Smith


	Watch video clips of Gordon Giesbrecht plunging into cold water in the name of science HERE (Photo by Dan Winters)

WITH A SIGNAL FROM the cameraman, Gordon Giesbrecht pushes off on his cross-country skis and starts moving over the thin layer of powder that blankets the icy surface of a lake on the outskirts of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The mercury has stabilized at a frisky six degrees Fahrenheit. Six feet tall, with powerful limbs, Giesbrecht moves in rhythmic strides—swish, swish, swish—his breath leaving a trail of fog in the air.

Suddenly the solid ice turns to slush, and Giesbrecht plunges in. As the frigid water saturates his jacket and Gore-Tex pants, his first instinct is to let out a loud gasp. Gasping is bad. If your head goes under mid-gasp, you can drown. Intent on staying alive, Giesbrecht quickly gets his breathing under control and focuses on shedding his skis. Bobbing in the icy soup, he thrusts his hands under the surface and fumbles with the releases for ten long seconds. Finally he gets them off and...a boom mike is thrust in front of his chattering teeth. "Water sucks the heat out of you 25 times faster than air at the same temperature," he says. Giesbrecht isn't speaking to his immediate audience—a TV crew and a clutch of EMTs who are nervously looking on—but to 55,000 viewers watching a Canadian science channel. He treads water for a few more minutes and sputters out a handful of other fun winter facts ("I have a window of two to five minutes to pull myself out, but it would be an hour or two before I died of hypothermia"). Meanwhile, the rescuers are looking anxious. They desperately want to hustle him out of the lake and into the warmth of their waiting ambulance.

To their collective relief, Giesbrecht successfully demonstrates the "kick and pull" technique, lifting himself out of the water and rolling away from the fragile ice edge. But what happens next is more suited to an old Buster Keaton routine than a science show: Gordon jumps straight back in. The paramedics immediately throw him a looped extension cord and drag him to safety. Hooray! He's out! No, wait, he's...lowered himself back into the lake. So they pull him out with a branch. But he plunges in again. The crew slides an aluminum ladder toward Giesbrecht and he grabs hold. They drag him onto the solid stuff—only to watch, astonished, as he leaps back in for the fourth time.

Giesbrecht has now been in the 36-degree water for 15 minutes. He dunks his head under the slushy surface one more time. "If I wasn't rescued really soon, I would go unconscious," he slurs, his eyelids drooping heavily. Finally, his voice flagging, he mumbles, "Ready for rescue." This time he means it.

Page: