Training with Jim

Today Jim McNeill of Ice Warrior has been at UCL - he came to deliver the rest of our clothing and do some training in the afternoon. Here's Ewan looking good in the office:

The training has been great - Jim is a real expert and has tons and tons of experience. He starts stories with lines like "I've only nearly perished twice until now..". We have been over a lot, from the obvious hazards like polar bears and hypothermia, to the not so obvious risks like trench foot. 

Somewhat counter intuitively, one of the key things to be careful of is getting too warm and sweating because once you stop working the sweat can freeze and cause a real risk of hypothermia. We talked about what happens if someone falls into a crack in the ice - after three minutes you will begin to lose feeling and dexterity, after 6 minutes you lose feeling and dexterity, by 9 minutes you will be unconscious and you will be dead after 20 minutes. Jim showed us some really gnarly pictures of limbs and extremities with varying degrees of frostnip and full on frost bite. Really grim, but a real risk - just a few seconds of exposed skin and it will freeze! Once it thaws you have a blister, which can then freeze again causing more damage...

It has really brought home the challenges that we're going to face and how we're going to have to rely a lot on each other and those around us to stay safe. I have to say I'm a little less worried about encountering a bear now than I was this morning, but I'm not sure if that's because I've been reassured or because there are so many other perilous things we're going to be up against! I'd rather come up against a curious polar bear than Rachel if she hasn't eaten for 2 hours. Just joking. Obviously.