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Outside Magazine January 2003

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Meet Prof. Popsicle (Cont.)


	Committed to the core: the Ph.D who always wanted to be a stuntman takes another icy plunge for science near Winnipeg, Manitoba. (Dan Winters)

DESPITE GIESBRECHT'S more or less unblemished safety record, his experiments often make members of the university's human subjects research committee a little squeamish. "His work draws red flags," says Dennis Hrycaiko, 56, a former chair of the committee. "But I never had any concerns he couldn't address."

To understand why worry hangs in the academic air, you need to know what the body goes through as its internal temperature begins to fall from 98.6 degrees—the "normal" mark on your household thermometer. Once exposure to cold air or water lowers your core to 95, mild hypothermia sets in and the body shivers in an attempt to rewarm itself. As the body temperature drops to 89.6 degrees, the threshold of moderate hypothermia, your speech becomes slurred, motor functions crash, and shivering ceases. You remain conscious all the way down to 82.4 degrees, the realm of severe hypothermia, but at that point, the heart can quite literally stop cold.

Since so few academics are prepared

Responding to skeptics who had questioned his science, Giesbrecht once snaked a probe through his veins and took a tempterature reading from inside his beating heart: "that really silenced my critics."

to start down this road, Giesbrecht has claimed numerous research firsts. In his debut experiment with Bristow in 1986, he figured out that in humans, shivering generates up to 3.5 degrees of heat per hour, and suggested that emergency personnel use lighter blankets so they wouldn't suppress the beneficial reaction. And in 1997, along with now-retired guru John Hayward, Giesbrecht was the first to clinically describe the symptoms of severe hypothermia in humans—crucial knowledge for EMTs. The pair used drugs to suppress shivering in mildly hypothermic subjects, mimicking the final stage before the last good-bye. Giesbrecht, ever the willing guinea pig, pumped himself full of narcotics for that one.

But like all mavericks, Giesbrecht is not without his critics. As recently as five years ago, a number of his peers, particularly in the United Kingdom, challenged his ideas about in-the-field rewarming of victims. They pointed out that his human-study temperature measurements had been taken from probes snaked down the esophagus, and that Giesbrecht's data conflicted with heart-temperature readings taken during animal tests. In 1998, believing that incorrect rescue protocols were costing lives, Giesbrecht underwent perhaps the most dangerous procedure of his career. He poked a catheter into a vein in his arm and carefully pushed it through his circulatory system to take a reading from inside his own beating heart. Then he went hypothermic and, risking cardiac arrest, showed that in humans, heart and esophageal temperatures mirror each other exactly. "That really silenced my critics," he says.

Well, not all of them. "That was only one study," counters Michael Tipton, a 43-year-old professor of human and applied physiology at the University of Portsmouth, England. "The mass of animal studies still show a difference between heart and esophageal temperatures." Sticking with the animal data, Tipton argues that "the jury is still out on rewarming."

A few thermoregulation scientists and physicians feel that Giesbrecht's experiments may be bruising the margins of prudent research. Giesbrecht admits it's not all fun and games; one test subject fainted from hyperventilating, while another chipped a tooth from shivering. But he calls his work "brutal, not dangerous." Most of his colleagues seem to agree. "All these studies are approved by review boards. They may be uncomfortable, but he's not taking anyone to body-core temperatures that are dangerous," says Colin Grissom, 42, a physician at the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City and an avalanche-burial researcher.

Giesbrecht avoids bragging about his exploits, but he makes sure all his colleagues know what he's up to. He copies and sends out videos of his gonzo field demonstrations (often, it must be said, upon request). "He sends me photos of himself way out there, wandering where Jesus left his sandals," says Robert Vosskuhler, a clinical vice-president for Augustine Medical, the makers of a forced-air rewarming device called the Bair Hugger, for whom Giesbrecht has done consulting work.

Sometimes his aggressively knowledgeable personal style can rub folks the wrong way. "He's very smart, but he has that scientist's arrogance," says one member of the Lake Winnipeg expedition. "He's always telling you what to do—how to cook, how to put up your tent," says another. "But the annoying thing is, he's always right."

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