Is it true that a person can endure a temperature of -70°C provided there is no wind?

doctor, freediving and walrus diving specialist, resident of InsightPeople production center

Let’s consider the most extreme variant, when a person finds himself in severe frosty conditions without clothes – only underwear and flip-flops.

Let’s imagine that the air temperature is -70°C, but there is no wind. We do not know other weather conditions, such as humidity. But let’s take an average value, i.e. moderately dry air – 60%.

Anthropometric indicators (height, weight, body volume) and details of the person’s health condition are also relevant.

Let’s model the situation on the example of an average Russian (male) with a height of 175 cm and weight of 90 kg, with a normosthenic type of physique, with no health problems and bad habits.

What happens when a person finds himself in conditions of abnormally low air temperature?

A bit of physiology – to supply organs and tissues there are vessels of different types (muscular and elastic), which are a kind of “pipelines” through which blood delivers oxygen and various nutrients throughout the body.

Vessels permeate the entire body and organs, including the skin. Their normal functioning requires a constant body temperature of 36.6°C (may vary slightly depending on age and individual characteristics). And to maintain it a person needs air temperature +18-20 ° C, a sharp decrease in which leads to hypothermia.

What can this lead to?

In order to protect the body from hypothermia (hypothermia) activate reactions aimed at reducing heat dissipation by narrowing the lumen of peripheral vessels and reducing sweating. And this is one of the mechanisms of thermoregulation.

At the moment of constriction of peripheral vessels, the blood flow of internal organs increases, there are involuntary chaotic muscle contractions – shivering, with which heat is released. There is a release of stress hormones, which are also involved in adaptive reactions in extreme conditions.

These processes are compensatory and adaptive. If a person does not take shelter, the compensation stage will be ineffective, then the decompensation stage develops.

Body temperature decreases, all mechanisms for heat preservation are broken: tissue metabolism is severely slowed down, which entails a decrease in metabolism. Constricted vessels expand, which leads to a large heat loss.

Meanwhile, in the central nervous system (CNS), the thermoregulation center is disturbed: shivering stops, which also entails a drop in body temperature. Brain activity decreases, and symptoms such as:

• impaired consciousness;
• a false sense of comfort and peace;
• pronounced drowsiness;
• apathy.

There comes multi-organ failure (total failure throughout the body), which leads to the death of the organism.

All of the above is a brief information about what will happen to a person if he is at such an abnormally low air temperature even in the absence of wind.

Can the consequences be avoided?

Since humans have no hair, and because of the fact that the extremities, or rather, the fingers and toes of the feet and hands, the nose and ear flaps are deprived of protective fatty tissue, in these places low temperature affects the fastest, and at -70 ° C this process is almost instantaneous!

There are several degrees of frostbite: 1st and 2nd degree. They are considered mild, but if you do not go to a shelter in time and do not provide the necessary help, then, unfortunately, there is a high probability to get frostbite 3rd and 4th degree and remain without limbs.

Since necrosis (cell death) spreads mercilessly, treatment is extremely difficult. Until recently, it was thought that this process was unregulated. However, there are treatments available in modern surgery. But they are radical, involving excision of dead tissue or amputation.

We would also like to pay attention to what happens to breathing when a person is in such a strong frost. At very sharp cooling of respiratory organs, and it is possible, if you take a quick and deep breath, there may be an instant stop of breathing (apnea).

But if you inhale such air more slowly and shallowly, the body’s defense reactions are activated, which help it to adapt and weaken the damaging effects of the environmental factor.

If you do not hide from the cold and do not stop cooling the respiratory organs, eventually comes hyperthermia (overheating), which can also be fatal.

After a brief consideration of the physiology of the organism and the processes occurring in it under the influence of extremely low temperature, we can conclude that prolonged stay in such a frost will lead to death.