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#11
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"Jeff Davis" wrote in message ... Technically speaking, you'd suffocate, not drown. Happened years ago There's no difference unless you survive only to succumb to the aftereffects of having water enter your lungs. drown |droun| verb [ intrans. ] -- die -- suffocate verb -- die -- Everything after these 2 words is a detail. |
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#12
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In message , Jeff Davis
writes Sloppy sloppy! Care to retract? No, I'll raise you an accusation of pedantry. -- Sue ];( Teamwork - a few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction! |
#13
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In article MpNPf.126908$H%4.65028@pd7tw2no,
Norm wrote: Everything after these 2 words is a detail. Au Contraire! To drown you must inhale water. To suffocate you must merely suffer from the lack of oxygen until death. You're on my dumbass list now... Nobody inhales water when they suffocate in snow. They soffocate because the ice crystals that form around their nose and mouth fuse into an air tight barrier. The cavity is depleted of oxygen and they die. Norm...you're happy sitting in the middle of the bell curve, aren't you. -- According to John Perry Barlow, "Jeff Davis is a truly gifted trouble-maker." |
#14
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In article ,
Sue wrote: In message , Jeff Davis writes Sloppy sloppy! Care to retract? No, I'll raise you an accusation of pedantry. Let's see... Inhaling water v. lack of oxygen until death. So because I'm smarter than you and I can read I'm pedantic? Better that than suffering in ignorance and cognitive destitution. -- According to John Perry Barlow, "Jeff Davis is a truly gifted trouble-maker." |
#15
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I have once experienced really light fluffy snow
that I could imagine sinking a long way into. I and wanted to cut across between two pistes (boring reason missed out). There was a small deciduous wood (50 yards across) in the way and I skied into it. I was barely moving and sank into the powder up to my chest at times. It was unbelievably light and fluffy, even with the snow up to my chest I was able to keep moving. This was just as well:-) Even though the group I was with were only a few yards away it could easily have gone wrong. Still it was fun. |
#16
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"Jeff Davis" wrote in message ... Sloppy sloppy! Care to retract? No, I'll raise you an accusation of pedantry. Let's see... Inhaling water v. lack of oxygen until death. So because I'm smarter than you and I can read I'm pedantic? Better that than suffering in ignorance and cognitive destitution. Point being the OP may have been incorrect in his use of the term drown, but what he really wanted to know was has anybody ever died from it. Either way you would still be dead, so the answer, whatever it might be, remains the same. Dead is dead. |
#17
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Norm wrote: "Jeff Davis" wrote in message ... Sloppy sloppy! Care to retract? No, I'll raise you an accusation of pedantry. Let's see... Inhaling water v. lack of oxygen until death. So because I'm smarter than you and I can read I'm pedantic? Better that than suffering in ignorance and cognitive destitution. Point being the OP may have been incorrect in his use of the term drown, but what he really wanted to know was has anybody ever died from it. Either way you would still be dead, so the answer, whatever it might be, remains the same. Dead is dead. And asphyxiation is asphyxiation. If you "inhale water", you will indeed suffer a lack of oxygen that will lead to death if the situation is not corrected. |
#18
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"Mary Malmros" wrote in message news:ulhQf.6 Sloppy sloppy! Care to retract? No, I'll raise you an accusation of pedantry. Let's see... Inhaling water v. lack of oxygen until death. So because I'm smarter than you and I can read I'm pedantic? Better that than suffering in ignorance and cognitive destitution. Point being the OP may have been incorrect in his use of the term drown, but what he really wanted to know was has anybody ever died from it. Either way you would still be dead, so the answer, whatever it might be, remains the same. Dead is dead. And asphyxiation is asphyxiation. If you "inhale water", you will indeed suffer a lack of oxygen that will lead to death if the situation is not corrected. Good point. Drowning is a subset of suffocation. Not all people who suffocated drowned, but all people who drowned suffocated. It differs somewhat in the method of application but the cause of death is still lack of O2 brought on by an excess of H2O in one form ar another. This makes drowning a lot more similar to suffocation than say, colliding with a lift tower. |
#19
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wrote in message oups.com... I have once experienced really light fluffy snow that I could imagine sinking a long way into. I and wanted to cut across between two pistes (boring reason missed out). There was a small deciduous wood (50 yards across) in the way and I skied into it. I was barely moving and sank into the powder up to my chest at times. It was unbelievably light and fluffy, even with the snow up to my chest I was able to keep moving. This was just as well:-) Even though the group I was with were only a few yards away it could easily have gone wrong. Still it was fun. I did something similar to this at Meadows on Mt. Hood. I was skiing with two friends and didn't see them turn and I followed two boarders. I stopped and heard my friends call to me, there was about 50 yards between me and them. So I headed towards them in un tracked snow not knowing it was so deep. As I got about 20 yards into this open area I realized that my poles wasn't hitting ground or any thing and I fell. The snow was about 5' deep I began to wonder how I was going to get out of this situation. My skis up on top of the snow and me deep down in the snow. I used me pole to get one of my skis off so I was able to stand on one leg with other still on top of the snow. I was really beginning to worry that I would have to dig my way to them. I struggled there for about 15 minutes trying to get back on top of the snow I did finally make it back up using my poles down in the snow. Lucky for me I had a lot of flexibility, I fell back down maybe three or four times trying to get the one ski back on. when I go it back on and was standing I just slide the skis across the snow almost like a cross country skier. I was exhausted when I finally got to my friends and they laughed at me for being so stupid. I normally ski in the east and we never get that much snow that you would sink so deep so that situation was new to me. Later that same day fog set so thick you couldn't see a thing and the goggles I was wearing that made it even worse. At the top of one run I couldn't see thing so I went to stop and fell. I had vertigo and didn't know up from down, whether I was moving or not. I began to panic knowing there was a 10' drop into some rocks not being able to see and thinking I was still sliding. I am kicking and flopping around like a fish out of water in all that movement my goggle got knocked off and I then noticed I wasn't moving at all. Again my friends had a real good laugh wondering what the hell I was doing. When I told them what had happened they were a little more understanding but still thought it was very funny watching me bouncing around. We went down to the lodge to buy some clear goggles and I threw out those other goggles, I wasn't going to go through that again. All in all that was still a great day. JQ Dancing on the edge |
#20
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Jeff Davis wrote:
Norm wrote: Everything after these 2 words is a detail. Au Contraire! To drown you must inhale water. To suffocate you must merely suffer from the lack of oxygen until death. You're on my dumbass list now... Nobody inhales water when they suffocate in snow. They soffocate because the ice crystals that form around their nose and mouth fuse into an air tight barrier. The cavity is depleted of oxygen and they die. Don't ask me why I'm jumping in here, but here's a slightly different viewpoint, based on the definition of "drown". From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning (about mid-way down the page): "Water entering the upper airways If water enters the airways of a conscious victim, the victim will try to cough up the water, or swallow it, thus inhaling more water involuntarily. Upon water entering the airways, both conscious and unconscious victims show laryngospasm, i.e. the Larynx or the vocal cords in the throat constrict and seal the air tube. This prevents water from entering the lungs. Due to this laryngospasm, water enters the stomach in the initial phase of drowning and very little water enters the lungs. Unfortunately, this can prevent air from entering the lungs, too. In most victims, the laryngospasm relaxes some time after unconsciousness, and water can enter the lungs; this is called wet drowning. However, about 10-15% of victims maintain this seal until cardiac arrest; this is called dry drowning as no water enters the lungs. In forensic pathology, water in the lungs indicate that the victim was still alive during drowning. The absence of water in the lungs may be either a dry drowning or a death before submersion." As someone who has experienced numerous laryngospasms (ObSki: none while skiing) I can definitely say that one could easily be caused by snow. Should the laryngospasm be severe enough, it could possibly lead to a "dry drowning". Granted, the odds are pretty slim, but it would be difficult to determine post-mortem whether that was the cause or if they just plain suffocated. As Norm pointed out, they'd still be dead. For those of us predisposed to these occurences, even a small particle hitting just the wrong spot can trigger one. I had a tortilla chip cause one once, as did some red pepper on a sandwich bun. Not fun at all. I even have had one trigerred once by chomping on some ice. So, to answer the OP's question, YES, it is possible to "drown" in snow, but it is much more likely that you'd suffocate. |
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