USMS was looking at Open Water Swimming related insurance expenses a short time ago.
www.usms.org/.../ow-2013-1-6-1.pdfwww.usms.org/.../articledisplay.php
I liked the old style before when the meeting minutes were on the home page. However, I make a point of clicking to see if there are new meeting minutes posted whenever I log into USMS Forums.
50 degree water is too cold for someone not aclimated. There is two types of aclimating, seasonal where a swimmer gets used to the cold water over a period of weeks/months and also immediate where a swimmer can get used to the water temp over a period of 15-30 minutes. Both help. If it is a dive start race, it will be a shock going in, not to mention the whitecaps. I think race starts where a swimmer has a bit of time in the water before the start is good when the water is cold.
i am so sad to hear someone died.
and yes with the already $1800 insurance cost from an open water event, this will i am sure only make that go up considerably more.
The decision to hold the event 3 months early was STUPID! Read about the problems with the swim potion.
As an event director who is forced to cancel her SAFE, LITTLE swim due to high insurance premiums, I am not amused by this kind of non-sense.
This has got to be nerve wracking start for any athlete.
www.youtube.com/watch
I did it. It's not so bad. But when I did it, it was more like 58-9 degrees. Then again, I had no wetsuit.
This has got to be nerve wracking start for any athlete.
www.youtube.com/watch
Not to make light of the seriousness of this issue, but shouldn't a wet suit and cap have been enough thermal protection against 50° water temps? For some reason I spaced out and had an incorrect mental image of English Channel swimmers, completely forgetting that triathlon swims in water temps below perhaps 75° are done with wet suits.
Over the years there's been speculation that the cause of these cardiac arrests seems to point to pulmonary edema which is somehow related to the wetsuits and lack of bloodflow. This is really sad. Hopefully they'll find a way to prevent this from happening in the future.
SIPE is the cover story of this month's Swimmer magazine, in case you haven't received it yet.
S
Water temperatures Sunday were 51 degrees. The race took place about three months earlier than in previous years, but even in June, water temperatures typically hover between 52 and 56 degrees, said race director Bill Burke. Ehlinger was wearing a wetsuit, and Burke said he didn’t believe the cold water contributed to his death.
Without question the cold water contributed to his death. Where did the race director earn his medical degree?
I'm not really disagreeing with your sentiments, but possibly what he meant was that the same thing might have occurred even if the race had been held at the normal time since the water might not have been that much warmer.
Would the difference in air temps have had an impact in this case? I believe it is important in hyper/hypothermia but this is different of course.
There seem to be some unknowns, as well as discordant information (or statements).
An earlier poster mentioned someone describing the deceased prior to the race as "apprehensive and sweating bullets." I believe these are symptoms associated with cardiac distress. (But maybe he wasn't sweating bullets...)
And on this thread
www.marathonswimmers.org/.../texas-man-dies-during-first-leg-swimming-of-alcatraz-triathlon
there is a report (third-hand) of the person who discovered him, floating face-down, 1/2 mile from the start.
I don't know who said he died within a minute of the jump, or on what basis.
Mermaid, is "Search for Monongy" no more? If so, I am sorry to hear it.
