Yesterday, loyal member KaraZ requested a follow-up post on the four missing boaters after she read reports that three of the men removed their life vests and simply drifted off. She thought there was something fishy going on.
In reality, it is a miracle that one of the men survived. At the time the boaters went missing, the temperature of the water in the Gulf of Mexico was an average of 64 degrees. The normal body temperature is 98.6. Any deviation in either direction of that range can result in the break down of vital bodily functions, leading to death.
As you know, if your temperature drops too far below normal, the brain sends a signal to the body to begin shivering — which in turn brings your body temperature back up due to the friction of the muscles.
But if you are exposed to the cold for a prolonged period of time, the shivering eventually stops. Once the shivering stops, confusion begins to set in and the patient loses his ability to think and speak clearly. In a last ditch effort to keep the vital organs (such as the heart, lungs, liver and kidneys) warm, the brain shunts warm blood away from the hands and feet and into the core of the body.
When the blood leaves the hands they become numb making it impossible to perform simple tasks such as holding onto the side of a boat.
In this confused mind state and level of exhaustion, it’s easy to see why the friends, Corey Smith, Marquis Cooper and Will Bleakley, probably removed their life vests (or the vests came off) and they swam off or drifted off into the sea.
Nick Schuyler survived because he wasn’t fully immersed in the cold water as long as the others. When Schuyler was found, he was sitting on the capsized boat hugging the boat’s engine for stability. Occasionally, he slipped into the water, but he was able to climb back out due to his physical fitness.
Even so, Schuyler’s body temperature was dangerously low when he was found (about 10 degrees lower than normal) and, according to the Coast Guard, he seemed disoriented.
The other men had nothing to hold onto. So they continued to slide off the slippery boat and into the water where they eventually succumbed to the cold temperatures.
They also could have been incapacitated by a sudden heart attack brought on by drinking too much seawater.
