A great rule of thumb I learned in Wilderness First Responder training: "1 minute, 10 minutes, an hour" It's catchy and easy to remember, and it means: * 1 min

A great rule of thumb I learned in Wilderness First Responder training: "1 minute, 10 minutes, an hour" It's catchy and easy to remember, and it means: * 1 minute to deal with the panic response (i.e. first keep yourself alive for the first minute, you have plenty of time, and lots of people die quickly because of panic and inhalation. * 10 minutes - that is roughly the amount of time you have to get yourself in a stable position before you lose motor control. Get yourself in a position with your head out of the water that doesnt require active support anyway you can - flotation, freezing yourself to an ice shelf, etc). * 1 hour - that's how long you'll live (roughly) in 32F water. You may have a lot longer depending on water temp and your body. There's a prof that did a lot of this research on his poor grad students (and you thought your thesis advisor was hard on you!). http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/kinrec/research/people/giesbrecht.html http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/kinrec/research/people/gie... He's the source for much of the recent research.