How Long for Frostbite to Set In?

[dreaded_beast]

At this BBQ I went to, me and 2 other people decided to have this contest.

We each stuck one of our hands in a cooler full of ice, ice-water, and soda cans.

The game was to see who could last the longest.

After a 2-3 minutes, someone mentioned frostbite and me and the other guy got worried, so we pulled our hands out after 5 minutes.

The winner was the other person, who kept their hand in for 7 minutes.

My question is, how long would it take before frostbite would set in?

And yes, this is a DUMB game, so no need to reiterate it in the thread.

 

[trancejeremy]

Can you even get frostbite from ice water? I mean, my definition, it's water, and so probably close to 33 degrees.

 

[dreaded_beast]

Can you even get frostbite from ice water? I mean, my definition, it's water, and so probably close to 33 degrees.

Hmm, I'm not sure, but I'm worried that there is probably some kind of detrimental effect from putting part of your body in icewater for an extended period of time.

When I couldn't feel my fingers, it started getting kinda scary, heh.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I got frostbitten toes and fingers in the 15-20 minutes it took me to walk home from my school bus stop in Manhattan, Kansas. Some bullies had tossed my gloves out of the bus window. Normally, the walk was only about 3 minutes, but the weather was so bad, I couldn't see, and the hilly sidewalk was slick with ice...it took me a couple of minutes to figure out I should be walking on the snow-covered lawns.

It was a freak blizzard, and -50F at the time. I almost couldn't move by the time I made it to my front door.

I made a full recovery, but even today, I'm more sensitive to cold in my hands than any other part of my body.

 

[Jdvn1]

So, in a bucket of ice water, assuming it's possible to get frostbitten, it'd probably take way more than 20 minutes?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah, pretty much.

Really, if you're talking about immersion in gold but liquid water, you're really talking about either hypothermia, or death by shock, but not frostbite.

With hypothermia, instead of damaging your extremities with intense cold, your body simply exhausts its energy reserves trying to heat the surrounding liquid to body temperature while simultaneously keeping your organs running. Eventually, your organs are simply too cold to function properly, and you die. This takes a while, depending upon the temperature of the liquid and the amount of it. In relatively warm water- say 70 or so degrees, it could take days. In the arctic, it would take 20 minutes, I'd guess. (There is, however, a growing body of evidence about how people have been brought back after hypothermic events.)

With shock, the intense cold screws up your cardio-pulmonary system in seconds. Your heart stops or you have a stroke, you die.

Oh yeah...IANAD!

 

[Jesus_marley]

Hypothermia will set in MUCH faster in water than in air of the same temperature. Full immersion in water at 1 degree Celsius will usually cause hypothermia within 5 minutes. ( I participated in a psychology study on pain using ice water immersion.... not fun).

As for frostbite, it is literally frozen body tissue. When the water in the cells freezes, it expands and also forms sharp crystals which ruptures the cell membrane, killing the cell. The longer the tissue is exposed to the freezing temperatures, the deeper the frostbite. Mild frostbite might result in the loss of some skin (which fortunately, will usually regenerate). More sever forms can result in the loss of extremities (fingers, toes, hands, feet, earlobes, nose, etc.)

Unless the tissue freezes, you won't get frostbite.

And just to save my ample butt..... IANAD!

 

[Iku Rex]

The most serious case of frostbite in my company when I was in the army was due to a private spending a day on the shooting range without his gloves/mittens on. (I don't remember if he was sent home or not afterwards, but it wasn't all that bad.) IIRC it was actually raining part of the day, so it must have been right around 0 degrees Celsius. In other words you don't need a lot of cold to cause damage.

When it got really cold in the winter (-20F) we were told that removing our mittens could cause frostbite in a matter of minutes. Dannyalcatraz was lucky to get away with "cold sensitivity" after 15-20 minutes with bare hands in -50F, as a child, in a blizzard.

(Good news Dannyalcatraz: You're most likely a high level character. DnD rules for cold.)

 

[Umbran]

Jesus_marley has the right of it.

How long will it take for frostbite to set in? Consider how long it'd take a similarly-sized hunk of meat to start freezing in the same environment. That'll be a good first estimate. If the environment won't freeze meat, it won't cause frostbite. Not to say that it'll be healthy or comfortable, but it won't cause frostbite, specifically.

 

[Thunderfoot]

ACtually all of the above posts are slightly wrong, becuase the real answer is...it depends.
Depending upon the persons matabilitory rate, body fat, air tempurature, etc... The sum of the variables are included to make the larger whole. As stated, water versus air will change things, temperature variations etc. Oh and frostbite has nothing to do with the temp being below freezing, though it is called frostbite, you can acutally begin freezing the extremities in temps as high as 45 degree Farenheit.

In your case though, frostbite was much less of a worry than immersion foot (or in this case hand). It is a condition also known as trenchfoot (can you guess why). The extremity is submerged or even damp and then exposed to extremely cold temps (below 50) for extended periods of time (usually in excess of an hour, but can be considerably less do to other factos). BTW my info comes from many hours spent in the military and the yearly "winterization" lecture that we had so that we wouldn't be pulled from the fight for stupid preventable health conditions. This had been a public service announcement

BTW, considering the time, you are probably fine.