Cold weather cause for safety precautions
After the first winter storm of the season, it's important to remember winter safety tips. Careful drive and dressing appropriately are key. Enlarge video
Signs of hypothermia
Anyone can get hypothermia, which occurs when your body gets cold and loses heat faster than your body can make it.
It is an emergency condition and can quickly lead to unconsciousness and death if heat loss continues.
Dr. Brian Hunt, of Lawrence Memorial Hospital’s emergency department, said it is important to know the symptoms and get treatment quickly.
Early symptoms are shivering, apathy, poor judgment, mild unsteadiness in balance or walking, slurred speech, numb hands and fingers, as well as cold, pale or blue-gray skin.
Late symptoms include trunk of body is cold to touch, muscles become stiff, slow pulse, shallow and slower breathing, weakness, sleepiness, confusion, loss of consciousness, and shivering, which may not stop if body temperature drops below 90 degrees.
Hunt said treatment for mild symptoms includes getting out of the cold, wet environment, using warm blankets, heaters and hot water bottles. Moderate to severe hypothermia generally is treated in the hospital with warmed intravenous fluids and warmed, moist oxygen in addition to other methods.
Frostbite warning
Doctors at Lawrence Memorial Hospital said they expect to see an increase in frostbite patients with temperatures dropping so low.
Emergency room Dr. Chad Gustin said if the blood vessels under your skin freeze, the cells can die and cause the skin to turn black.
He said it’s especially important to keep your nose, ears and other exposed skin covered if you’re going to be outside for long periods of time.
“We’re all so used to, in the late fall, just running out with a regular jacket on and no gloves,” Gustin said. “Now that it’s dropped so cold, we need to bundle up more.”
The doctor said frostbite can occur in seconds or minutes when the temperature is below zero.
LMH officials said Wednesday that the emergency room had seen no patients with weather-related injuries, including falls.
Weather conditions may seem a tad more pleasant today, after subzero wind chills, icy temperatures and snow accumulation made for a frustrating Wednesday for many people.
“The wind’s the worst part,” said David Mills, a Kansas University senior from Rapid City, S.D. “You can cover everything up, but the wind cuts right through the clothing. It’s horrible.”
Wind chills sat at minus 10 degrees at 10 a.m. Wednesday and stayed below zero for most of the day, said Matt Elwell, 6News meteorologist. Winds blew at 15 mph with individual gusts reaching 37 mph.
Actual temperatures bottomed out at 10 degrees during the daylight hours Wednesday. The high of 27 degrees for the day was recorded just after midnight.
About three inches of snow fell Tuesday and Wednesday in downtown Lawrence, Elwell said, with the last flakes falling about 4 a.m. Wednesday.
The frigid temperatures and snow-packed roads put local wreckers in overdrive, responding to dead battery calls and slide-offs, including one at Inverness and Heritage drives, in which a car left the road and went down a hill and into a forested ravine area.
“It’s hard on our equipment, it’s hard on us,” said Alec Drown, a tow truck driver for Hillcrest Wrecker, as he prepared a tow at the North Eighth Street boat ramp along the Kansas River. “We try to work as fast as we can, so we can get back in the truck and get going again.”
Drown said business was nonstop from noon to midnight Tuesday and picked back up again around 7 a.m. Wednesday as people headed to work and school.
Lawrence police said they responded to 18 accidents — none major — between 6 p.m. Tuesday and 11 a.m. Wednesday.
Many people reported having trouble getting the doors of their frozen cars to open Wednesday morning and had to deal with the frustrating chore of scraping snow and ice from windows.
“I’m going to be late for work,” said Tara Smith, as she worked her car windows in North Lawrence on Wednesday morning. “I forgot to leave extra time.”
At Kansas University, KU on Wheels buses were delayed between 30 and 40 minutes Wednesday morning.
Students had little choice but to be out in the cold and windy weather.
“It sucks, to sum it up,” Mills said. “Walking across campus is horrible. (The wind’s) in your face, no matter which way you’re facing.”
Elwell predicted a high of 22 degrees today. Temperatures will barely break freezing by Friday afternoon, he said.
Comments
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tumbilweed (anonymous) says…
Buncha whiners.
consumer1 (anonymous) says…
Jeeper's I hope the beav is okay?
mr_right_wing (anonymous) says…
Good..global warming returns. I was about to get out a bunch of old CFC spray bottles to try and warm things up a bit. Co2 rules!