We never had anybody who froze to death playing football. You probably had somebody who died from heat stroke playing football.
For a very long time, we've been extraordinarily interested in the interaction between low temperature and low oxygen. We see that they're connected because we know people who are extremely cold are not getting oxygen to their cells. And yet, they're sometimes alive.
Basic SEAL training is six months of long, torturous runs in the soft sand, midnight swims in the cold water off San Diego, obstacles courses, unending calisthenics, days without sleep and always being cold, wet and miserable.
I do cryotherapy, which is where you're in minus 70 and you have three minutes of deep freeze and your body thinks it's dying so it produces loads of blood cells and then you're fine - apparently.
You don't know fear until it's 7 A.M. and freezing cold on live television, and you're not sure if Justin Bieber is going to kiss you or not.
Forcing yourself to shiver is one of the hardest things on your muscles and isometrics.
Being cold for a short period of time is not life-threatening. You can perform a task when you're cold. We proved that when the Vikings played outside.
What might be happening in human beings who experience near death is that they are getting cold, but before they get so cold that they would die, they're actually diminishing their oxygen consumption in a way that is unknown. And that extends their survival limits, so they can appear dead but actually not be dead.
In the cold, all the blood rushes to your core to protect your heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and brain. When you leave the water, the blood rushes back to your arms and legs, absorbs that freezing cold, and brings it back to the heart.
Humans are pretty crafty but will fold quickly in severe cold.
