Stop Swimming

[mountainmatt]

Stop Swimming

[mountainmatt]

The site seems to be down, here is the text:

 

No swimming: Dale Atkins says much of what you know about surviving an avalanche is wrong

By Clay Evans (Contact)

Friday, January 12, 2007

 

Dale Atkins at the site of a 2005 avalanche in Brown's Gulch. Long an avalanche forecaster for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center in Boulder, Atkins now has his own avalanche consulting business in Boulder.

 

For a century and a half, ever since a Swiss writer first described the technique in 1864, the message has been the same: If caught in an avalanche, start swimming.

 

Makes sense. After all, the human body is more dense than snow, so it will have a tendency to sink - right? And as the Wiki How Web site advises, "Try to stay afloat by using a swimming motion. ... As the avalanche slows down, quickly try to get yourself to the surface before the snow settles."

 

Sure. If you want to suffocate.

Boulder's Dale Atkins, for nearly two decades the top forecaster at the Colorado Avalanche Information Center in Boulder and one of the world's top avalanche experts, says swimming kills more people than it saves.

 

Atkins acknowledges that there are anecdotal tales of swimming to survive an avalanche, but "the problem is, it's a very biased sample," he says with a pleasant smile. "They're all survivors."

 

In fact, says Atkins, who has studied avalanches all over the world and is now an avalanche consultant after leaving CAIC last year, much "common sense" about surviving avalanches is wrong.

 

And when Atkins speaks, people in the avalanche business listen.

 

"He has done so much with thinking about accidents, investigation, doing research, what he says carries a lot of weight," says Spencer Logan, a forecaster at CAIC.

 

The wiki entry above is a perfect example of avalanche misinformation.

 

Error No. 1: Yes, the human body is more dense than snow (technically, Atkins says, we're talking about specific weight, which takes gravity into account, not density) but that doesn't mean you sink in an avalanche.

 

"What we've done with being in an avalanche is treat it like water," says Atkins, 45. "The problem is, an avalanche is not water. It has a fluidized state, but it's not a liquid. It's a solid. It's actually a granular flow."

 

And granular flows behave very differently from liquids: Smaller "particles" - of whatever: rocks, cereal, snow clumps - settle toward the bottom, while larger particles move toward the surface.

 

"A person is like a really big particle, and rises to the top," says Atkins, who grew up in Evergreen and first joined an alpine rescue team at 13, describing the principle of "inverse segregation."

 

Don't believe him? Check out your cereal box or next bag of chips: The crumbs sift to the bottom, while the biggest pieces stay on top; he also calls this the "Brazil nut effect," because smaller nuts sink to the bottom of the bowl.

 

The stats are on Atkins' side: Since 1975, some 1,748 people have been caught in American avalanches, but only 309, or roughly 18 percent, were buried.

 

"And we only hear about serious accidents," he says. "Probably twice that many people have been caught, but we probably hear of nearly all the burials. So the actual burial number might be only 10 percent."

 

Error No. 2: The classic advice about "swimming" actually may kill more avalanche victims than it saves. The most important thing to do if caught in an avalanche is maintain a breathing space around your mouth. But if your hands are doing the breaststroke, you can't do that.

 

"All these people I've dug out, rescues I've been involved in, pictures I've seen, their hands aren't near their faces," Atkins says.

 

Error No. 3: Advice to wait until "the avalanche slows" to put your hands to your face, Atkins says, is a recipe for death if you are unlucky enough to be buried.

 

"That may be physically impossible because of what happens. In a matter of a second or two, an avalanche can slow, stop, and all those clumps of snow interlock. As soon as that happens, you go from a fluidized flow to a solid block," he says. "You can't get your hands to your face."

 

Logan still advises "fighting like hell" when an avalanche clearly is still moving, then still protect an air space and "ball up," as long as you are in control. But he acknowledges that sometimes, "there's no way you can be in control," and Atkins says don't bother swimming at all once you've cast off your ski poles, ice ax or other "anchors."

 

Atkins realizes his advice goes against 150 years of avalanche wisdom, but as a long-time member of Colorado's Alpine Rescue Group (which helped dig out cars buried in the Jan. 6 avalanche on Berthoud Pass), former Loveland ski patroller, member of the International Commission for Alpine Rescue, and co-author of "The Snowy Torrents," Vol. 4, which details every American avalanche from 1980 to 1986 (Vol. 5, now in process, will cover 1987 to 2000), he knows of what he speaks.

 

And sometimes, he says, conventional wisdom needs to be shaken up.

 

"Think of bloodletting. Sometimes it may have worked. ... The logic was, something 'bad' needed to be let out of the body. And if it didn't work, the physician or barber or surgeon just said, 'We tried everything, they were too sick, their time was up,'" Atkins says. "That's sort of what we've done with being stuck in an avalanche. The logic is to treat an avalanche like water. ... But for all the 150 years of saying 'swim,' there is no statistical evidence that it works. It's become a kind of conventional wisdom. The logic is sound, but the premise is wrong."

 

Contact Clay Evans at (303) 473-1352 or evansc@dailycamera.com .

 

 

[DirtyHarry]

Interesting. In the one avalanche I was caught in it was my instant reaction to start swimming, regardless of anything I'd read or been taught. It would be interesting to see some experiments done to test Dale's theory.

[dbconlin]

Thanks for the enlightening post. Hopefully I will avoid the need, but it is definitely good to know.

[plexus]

Saw this last month on Lou Dawson's blog. My train of thought is to get the hell out and if that is not possible, to clear as much debris from my face as possible during burial.

[iain]

Bah, he just wants to make sure your recco reflectors don't fall off.

 

[beecher]

I made the mistake of inhaling a bunch of snow once, not in an avalanche, but while I was being towed on some chicken wire around a frozen pond in order to knock the bumps off the ice. We didn't have a zamboni. pondhockey buyah!

Anyway.. my brother scooped a bunch of the ice shavings up and threw them in my face just as I was inhaling. I had to wait until the ice melted before I could breathe again.

I'd like to think that if I were carried by a slide, I'd ride calmly along with my hands in front of my face, but I imagine it would be difficult to fight the instinct to move the limbs around to try to maintain a feeling of balance.

[tread_tramp]

My only experience with being caught in an avalanche was on the east face of Mt Washington, in the Olympic Range. I fought like hell to stay on top; but then rolled my body sideways to get to the shallower slower moving edge of the avalache path.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Swimming might also increase the risk of trauma to the arms and legs.

[Bug]

Who knows the email address for Mythbusters? I bet they'd do it.

[mountainmatt]

Who would volunteer to be put in a simulated avalanche?

[jca]

I was buried in a powder av. near Artist Point(Mt Baker ski area)in the winter of 1987. I had my eyes open and could see the light above me as I was swept downslope perhaps 100 feet. I was swimming like crazy and it really seemed to help pull my upper body toward the surface. However, my skinny skis with 3-point bindings were pulling me downward. As I felt the snow coming to a stop I lunged upward and got one hand out. I was able to bend my arm in the loose snow and clear a hole to my face. Other than that I could not move. My partner dug me out. Now I ski in the controlled areas and climb only when conditions are very stable and still have fun. In addition to all the other equipment and techniques available to help avoid and/or susvive an av., I believe quick release bindings, pole straps(or not placing the straps around your wrists and pack straps could help.

[MysticNacho]

I can see how ski's and poles would drag you down, but wouldn't wearing a backpack make you just a bigger "particle" and help float you to the top?

[fear_and_greed]

Was B/C sking this weekend and saw maybe 40 other people up there. Besides my partner and myself no one else had Avalungs. I saw probes, shovels and beacons but not something that will give you some extra minutes. Crazy.

[Bug]

Who would volunteer to be put in a simulated avalanche?

What is the difference between not swimming and the rubber dummy?

Or were you volunteering?

[G-spotter]

Was B/C sking this weekend and saw maybe 40 other people up there. Besides my partner and myself no one else had Avalungs. I saw probes, shovels and beacons but not something that will give you some extra minutes. Crazy.

 

You didn't have an airbag? Maybe you are crazy too. When you point a finger, there's three pointing back at you.

[mountainmatt]

What is the difference between not swimming and the rubber dummy?

Or were you volunteering?

 

Every experiment needs a control. I was hit with a small sluff avalanche last year, that is as close as I would ever want to be.

[OrganDonor]

Im sure you could find someone stupid enough to volunteer for a simulated slide. It would definitely make for a good jackass clip. Have the "volunteer" walk out to the edge of a mammoth cornice. Then you pull out the trusty snow saw, and hack that bitch off while he's standing on the edge of it. Make sure you get it on tape though. The person sawing might want to be belayed, or he to may become an volunteer.

 

It noted that 18% percent of victims caught in slides were buried. What are the statistics of people killed or seriously injured from hitting trees, rocks, ice chuncks, etc... during the slide?

 

[mountainmatt]

According to Dru's airbag website, of the people that are buried, 34% survive and 66% die (20% due to injury during the fall, 80% due to late rescue). If you are not buried, 95% survival, 5% from injuries during the fall.

 

I think you are right though, this is something that Steve-O or JK would do for sure...

[EJF]

With the caveat that I know far less than Dale Atkins does about this subject...

 

It seems like the argument in the article is that "swimming" is bad because you aren't using your arms to create an airspace, not because "swimming" is bad per se. The flaw in the argument, it seems to me, is that "swimming" is more likely to keep you on the surface and therefore make you not need an air space. The article says:

 

Don't believe him? Check out your cereal box or next bag of chips: The crumbs sift to the bottom, while the biggest pieces stay on top; he also calls this the "Brazil nut effect," because smaller nuts sink to the bottom of the bowl.

 

By "swimming" you make yourself more like the big corn flake that's up at the top rather than the crumb that's at the bottom - or to go with the nut analogy, more like the Brazil nut and less like the hazel nut. Here's one experiment I'd like to see: Get 50 crash test dummies with their arms and legs spread out in an X and 50 crash test dummies in fetal position. Put them on top of a slope that's about to go, trigger it and then see how many of each kind stay on top. I'll bet that there's a marked excess of the dummies with their arms and legs stretched out in an X.

 

This is ignoring the effect of actually moving your arms, but I'll bet that simply the fact that "swimming" makes you, in effect, a bigger particle makes "swimming" beneficial. And it's probably a whole lot more intuitive than popping out into a stiff X shape when you're caught in an avalanche.

[G-spotter]

swimming in granular fluid reduces your profile, not increases it? try it in quicksand sometime... same deal. swim and sink. rest and float

[mountainmatt]

So basically, when you are caught in an avalanche, you should lay back and enjoy the ride. That is assuming you can calm down enough to do so.

[iain]

No, when you are caught, you should think brazil nut.

[G-spotter]

brazil nuts in green banana hammock, to be precise