In the human imagination, some deaths exert a macabre psychological pull that’s disproportionate to their real-world occurrence. After all, whose mind hasn’t idly pondered what it would be like to spend one’s final minutes burning at the stake, being hanged drawn-and-quartered, crashing in an airplane, being hit by lightning, swallowed by a shark or dying from an act of terrorism?
But whereas freezing to death – another demise that stars in dark daydreams – is fodder for the analyst’s couch in plenty of metropolitan American cities, in Durango, it’s an actuality.
Cold as ice
La Plata County Coroner Jann Smith said one person died of hypothermia in 2012, and there were three hypothermia deaths in 2013, though only one happened in winter.
About one person freezes to death every year, said Mercy Regional Medical Center spokesman David Bruzzese.
In below-zero temperatures, it’s easy to do, as cold weather means that commonplace mistakes – such as losing one’s way in the woods, locking oneself out of the house or landing one’s car in a snow bank – can become mortal errors.
Even seemingly inane activities like household chores can pose great danger in frigid temperatures.
Dr. David Hughes, who practices emergency medicine at Mercy, said he recently treated someone who came into the emergency room with severe frostbite, almost losing his fingers, after the man spent a few hours shoveling his car out of the snow without wearing gloves.
Hughes said in the course of a winter jog, the sweat off one’s own back can induce hypothermia if one is exposed to the cold for too long.
While all sorts of people seek treatment for hypothermia, the temperatures are particularly deadly to the homeless, who must often try to stay alive in winter without minus-40 sleeping bags or waterproof tents.
In 2011, Christopher Evans, a homeless man, was discovered dead outside Durango High School, where he’d been sleeping, after being exposed to cold and rain for hours. He was 36.
The 2013 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress found more than 200,000 homeless Americans were living in unsheltered locations, making them much more vulnerable to hypothermia in cold temperatures.
Cruel winter
At Manna Soup Kitchen, Elton Richardson, who lives in his tent in the hills west of town, said winter makes life extremely difficult.
To stay alive at night, Richardson has insulated his tent with 12 comforters and six pillows, layering the tent wall with tarps and blankets “to try and trap the heat in.”
Despite his architectural improvisations, he’s gotten sick twice this winter.
He said for extra heat, he sleeps with his dog, Jules, and a human friend at night to keep warm.
Little can be done about the snow, however, which creates moisture.
“Just touching the side of the tent creates wetness, and breathing causes condensation to form inside the tent and freeze during the night. So electronics and clothing are pretty much saturated by morning,” he said.
Richardson said he likes to think he is smart enough to survive winter more or less intact.
“I grew up in foster care, and I’ve pretty much been on the street my whole life,” he said. “It’s all about planning. If you plan ahead, you can survive a hard winter. It’s going to be rough, it’s going to suck, but you can do it.”
But Richardson said the majority of Durango’s homeless population isn’t prepared.
“Eighty-five percent of these (people) aren’t prepared,” he said. “Eighty percent spend all their money on booze and get drunk. They don’t even have a tent.”
The homeless have some local sleeping options that don’t entail sleeping outside, such as the Volunteers of America community shelter and Detox. But curfews and rules of behavior – for instance, no drinking in the Volunteers of America shelter – mean they aren’t viable for many homeless people.
Durango Police Department spokesman Lt. Ray Shupe said police occasionally encounter people asleep on the streets at night.
He said in addition to the Salvation Army, Detox and the shelter, police are looking forward to using a new resource, the Winter Haven Supplement Shelter for families.
Hypothermia a weird death
Hypothermia is a somewhat paradoxical illness. Children recover from it better than adults. Despite the warmth a “whiskey blanket” seems to provide, it disproportionately victimizes drunks. One of the signs you have it is that you start thinking irrationally, making it difficult to self-diagnose, said Hughes, the Mercy doctor.
In essence, hypothermia occurs when the body’s core temperature drops well below normal.
“Then the heart gets very irritable, there can be arrhythmias, and the body can’t sustain the heartbeat and get blood to the brain,” Hughes said.
He said hypothermia takes varying amounts of time to kill.
“It depends on how cold you are,” he said. “If you were to be dropped into the Arctic Ocean right now, you’d last maybe an hour or so, though sometimes people immediately die because of the shock.”
Hughes said that while some people miraculously have survived hypothermia, with body temperatures plunging as low as 50 or 60 degrees, most cases of severe hypothermia involve the body’s temperature dropping to 80 degrees or below.
“Then the body loses the ability to regulate temperature,” he said. “Usually when it’s cold, the body clamps vessels down to the core. But when people get cold enough, the body actually starts regulating blood flow to the skin.
“There are lots of reports of where people with hypothermia start to undress because they feel so hot, or lie down and start sleeping in a snow bank. Eventually, your mental status is altered, as well.”
Asked how freezing to death compared with other gory ends, Hughes paused.
“In terms of pleasantness of death? It’s probably better than burning to death, and being hung drawn-and-quartered is probably pretty high. Drowning probably isn’t as good. But I haven’t experienced any of those, so you’d have to ask a dead person.”
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
