Cold snap claims 2 victims
Forty-year-old man, 78-year-old Bedouin woman die of hypothermia
Itzik Spielberg, a MDA paramedic, told Ynet that the medics “were dispatched to the scene by the police, but there was little left to do for the victim. He was stiff and cold, having probably been lying there for several hours. He was found in the back parking lot of a building were there is rarely any traffic, so I don’t even know how he was found.”
The medic additionally noted that “the victim was lying on the floor without so much as even a blanket. He only had a bottle of vodka beside him. He was wearing a coat, but nothing warm enough for this weather.”
Additionally Sunday, a dead baby was brought in to the “Ziv” Medical Center in Safed Sunday morning, another apparent victim of hypothermia. The infant’s mother said that she found him in bed with his temperature dangerously low. It is still unclear whether the infant’s cause of death is hypothermia.
Friday night several more victims of hypothermia were taken to local hospitals. In Tel-Aviv, two homeless victims of hypothermia were hospitalized.
During the early hours of Sunday morning, a 78-year-old Bedouin woman was admitted to the Soroka University Medical Center in Be'er Sheva suffering from confusion related to hypothermia. Hospital staff managed to raise her core body temperature and stabilize her, however she later passed away of massive systems failure.
Three Stages of Hypothermia
Head of MDA’s Training Division, Natan Kodinsky, notes that hypothermia sets in when one’s body temperature drops below 35°C (95°F). It can happen “when we don’t wear enough warm clothing or find ourselves in a particularly cold environment on the ground or on cold rocks,” he says.
Kodinsky further noted that hypothermia occurs in three stages:
In the first, milder phase, body temperature drops by 2-4°C (3.6-7.2°F) below normal. Symptoms include apathy, lethargy, and disorientation. The victim becomes pale. Lips, ears, fingers and toes may become blue and violent shivering often occurs.
Moderate hypothermia, as seen in the majority of this weekend’s victims, is characterized by sluggish thinking, confusion and lack of alertness. Muscle coordination becomes very poor, while victims’ heart rate, pulse and respiration all slow considerably.
Finally, severe hypothermia occurs when body temperature drops below 28° C (82.4 °F). At this point victims are typically unconscious or comatose, and cardiac output continues to fall. The risk of dangerously irregular heart rhythms increases, and cardiac arrest can occur.
Meital Yasur-Beit Or, Yonat Atlas, and Hagai Einav contributed to this article
