Professor Popsicle is One Cool Customer
Do a search on the internet for Professor Popsicle and you will come across one of the choices that read “Meet Professor Popsicle/ Outside Online”. Click on this one and you will have your choice of three Professor Popsicle videos in which he actually plunges into a frozen lake while riding a snowmobile or walking on his skis. The experience is tough to watch, but Professor Popsicle isn’t doing this for the publicity. He is doing it to further his understanding of the effects of freezing water on those who are most likely to get themselves into these predicaments. Professor Popsicle has been hypothermic over thirty times in his life, but insists there has been no term long term damage.
What Professor Popsicle stresses in his videos, as he is in the water with a rescue team on standby ready to pull him out at the first sign of trouble, is that the first few seconds are crucial. Professor Popsicle has shown that when you go into water as cold as we are talking about, a person has a tendency to hyperventilate, which, if he is under water, will lead to a quick drowning. Professor Popsicle’s controlled demonstrations show this “cold shock response”, a gasping reaction to the cold water. But Professor Popsicle shows that if you can survive this initial danger, you have a chance to get out.
Always go back the way you came in says Professor Popsicle, because that ice has already proven to hold you. But if you cannot get out quickly, Professor Popsicle says the window to escape will be from two to five minutes before the cold disables your muscles to the point that you no longer have the strength to make it. Professor Popsicle, in his videos, demonstrates the best way to get out of the water and back onto the ice. He puts his arms up as far as he can, pulls himself up on the ice as high as he can, and then kicks horizontally with his legs, propelling himself out of the hole that has been cut for the experiment. Professor Popsicles rolls away from the hole rather than immediately stand up, due to the fact that the ice could break again. Then, Professor Popsicle goes back in to show what happens if you don’t get out on your first few tries! You will find it hard to accept that someone would hop back into that cold water.
Staying calm in such a situation is important, and Professor Popsicle drives this point home. Even though he has a team right there with him, you find it hard to believe that anyone can be as matter of fact as Professor Popsicle is in these videos. Nobody should ever go into the water after the person to attempt a rescue. Professor Popsicle says potential rescuers need to find a branch, rope, cord, or ladder to get to the unfortunate individual. Professor Popsicle goes through all of these attempts on his video, and then tells you what to do if you cannot get out on your own and there is no help right there. Professor Popsicle says to stop thrashing around, use your head, and get as much of your body out of the water as possible, slowing down the hypothermic strain of the cold water. He even shows you how to perhaps save your life by allowing your arms or beard to freeze to the ice, keeping you above water long enough for someone to find and rescue.
Professor Popsicle has shown that it is possible to survive for much longer in cold water than most people think. In his snowmobile video, Professor Popsicle drives the vehicle several yards out into the water wearing what an average snowmobiler would. He then attempts to swim to safety, but quickly finds that is not possible with the gear he has on. All the while, Professor Popsicle gives you a running play by play on how he is feeling and doing. The videos are so enthralling, that you will actually feel cold just watching them!
I did not have the benefit of Professor Popsicle’s insights when I fell through the ice into ten feet of water in March of 2003 while ice fishing. I went completely under that day, but after what seemed an eternity I was able to resurface and escape a certain death. I learned of Professor Popsicle a year later, and when I watch his videos now, I can only think of how lucky I was that I did not experience the gasping response that would have drowned me. Anyone who lives in an area where there are plenty of winter sports involving ice, whether it is cross-country skiing, ice fishing, hockey, or just plain skating, owes it to themselves to watch Professor Popsicle’s videos. Nobody should go through what Professor Popsicle goes through in these experiments for nothing!
