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Updated: Apr 6, 2026

Esophageal Heat Transfer for Patient Temperature Control and Targeted Temperature Management
Published on: November 21, 2017
Apparent Cooling Rate of 7°C per Hour in an Avalanche Victim
Mathias Ströhle1, Gabriel Putzer2, Emily Procter3
11 Department of General and Surgical Critical Care Medicine, Innsbruck Medical University , Innsbruck, Austria .
Abstract:
Avalanche victims can become hypothermic within 35 minutes of snow burial. However, reported cooling rates for avalanche victims are highly variable and it is poorly understood how much cooling is influenced by general factors (body composition, clothing, ambient conditions, duration of burial, and metabolism), unknown inter-individual factors or other phenomena (e.g., afterdrop). We report an apparent cooling rate of ∼7°C in ∼60 minutes in a healthy backcountry skier who was rewarmed with forced air and warm fluids and was discharged after 2 weeks without neurological sequelae.
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