Igloo Man

Swedish man was/was not trapped in his car for two months/a bit living on only snow, but maybe other stuff

Peter Skyllberg may or may not have survived an ordeal which may or may not have been a miraculous survival story.

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Frankly I don't care if this recent survival story is true or not, but it does raise some interesting survival questions. Let's take them in a pretty standard order of priority; that is to say, let's deal first with the things that would kill us first.

Stuck?


Apparently, he was stuck in the car, under two feet of snow. Well, it wasn't an avalanche, so I have to wonder how he managed to get stuck inside during even the heaviest of snow storm. Might have been worth checking the weather forecast to if there was an indication of such a storm for him to have been so quickly snowed in. Maybe packing a snow shovel would have been an idea. There was no mention of him being knocked out, and even if he slept through his snow storm, it's not beyond the wit of man to open or even break a window and poke your way out. He had to have some form of ventilation, or he'd had suffocated.

Temperature

They say the temperature went down to -30°C, but let's assume that's the press playing the statistics cards. I had a quick look at the statistics for the area and it turns out.

The month of January is characterized by essentially constant daily high temperatures, with daily highs around -3°C throughout the month, exceeding 3°C or dropping below-12°C only one day in ten. Daily low temperatures range from -12°C to -10°C, falling below -22°C or exceeding -1°C only one day in ten.

February wasn't much different. That's not actually that exciting. Yeah, you wouldn't want to stand outside in your birthday suit, but it's not exactly Arctic conditions. Given that the guy had a sleeping bag, we can assume that he also had some sensible clothes too. Pretty good preparation, I'd say.

Shelter

What's immediately apparent about a car, is that it's already wind and waterproof, which is nice. Something else that's useful about a car, is that's it's insulated from the ground rather well, it being not only raised off the ground, but held up by inflated rubber tyres. So far, so good.

My former colleague was quoted in the Telegraph as saying that trying to survive in a car was going to be gruelling, since it was made of metal. If this was an isolated fact, it would be true, since a metal shelter is highly conductive of heat and quickly evens out the inside and outside temperatures, basically, making the inside temperature fall to that of the surrounding environment. I imagine the quote was taken from a quick phone call, which is the normal way the press gets a sound bite for a story.

It turns out, if you have a look at the press photos, that there was a good 50cm of snow on the top of the car and given that he was dug out, we can assume that was covering the whole car. Snow is about 80%, which makes it a great thermal insulator. Snow has a thermal conductivity (k) of around 0.16 W/m K, which is better than brick (0.18), but not quite good as wood (about 0.12) but it's about 7 times better than glass (1.1), 250 times that of steel (55) and 1400 times better than Aluminium (237). We can assume the car had some form of meagre insulation, but we all know how quickly a car gets chilly after you've stopped blowing warm air into it.

Heat transfer is inversely proportional to thickness of material, that is to say that twice the thickness of material yields half the heat transfer and hence half the heat loss over the same period of time. Standard  maximum roof insulation is around 270mm thick, which is around half the thickness of our snow. The materials vary, but it has a conductivity of around 0.04, which if four times better than snow. That makes good roof insulation only twice as good as the snow. So, that's not all bad either.

Other than the igloo and snow hole, another example of snow insulation is that of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 which famously crashed in the Andes and became the subject of a book and the film Alive. Other than the well publicised cannibalism, an avalanche covered the fuselage of the plane, killing nine, but arguably aiding the survival of the remainder.

So, what's heating up the air in the car? Well, as far as I can tell, there was only one heat source available, and that was our guy. We humans emit energy at a rate of about 100 Watts, normally, which is why a party in a small room always get a bit warm. A cheap bathroom heater is about 400W and a car is a rather a lot smaller than even my tiny bathroom. As the air in the now insulated car heats up, we cool down more slowly, so burn less calories keeping warm, unlike standing outside, where we just keep loosing heat to the largely constant temperature air and ground. 

All in all, the snow covered car is not a bad shelter at all.

Fire

Our hapless 'igloo man' was next to a wood. I still don't think he was stuck in it, so I'm going to assume he could have got out. Now let me think ... I'm cold and next to a wood. I know, I'll light a fire. Bit a no brainer. 

"But what if he didn't have anything to light a fire with?" you may ask. Well, other than the quite difficult "rubbing two sticks together" methods, he had a car, and there are loads of ways of lighting a fire with bits of car. More realistically, however, someone who travels out to photograph Elk (as it seems he was) in those conditions, should be carrying something to light fires with. If not, then frankly, get out of my gene pool. That's basic preparation.

Sat by a fire by day, sleep in the car by night. That the most efficient way of keeping warm if you don't have the skills to keep a fire going all night.

Rescue

Our chap was obviously remote and said to be about 1km from a road. This road was described as "main" and there were reportedly hundreds of mapped snowmobile tracks. I don't really understand how he could not have signalled for help or gotten to the road. Either he didn't bother, or he didn't want to get rescued, or he wasn't there for long at all. Hmmm.

Sensible solutions for someone wanting to get noticed from an off road position are signs and smoke signals. That's a blog post by itself, but he obviously missed a trick there.

Water

So, snow, that's water right? Well yes, but it's cold. This chap was said to have survived by "eating snow and ice". Good old Daily Mail, but even the Telegraph alluded to the same. More likely, he would have eaten melted snow, see above for methods of melting. 

What's wrong with eating snow? Well, consuming snow directly means that you have use energy to melt it. Even if we use body heat to melt it in advance, we're still using our own energy, albeit not from the core directly. Even if we let the nice warm air in our car warm it up, we're still taking heat from the air we heated up ourself which we'll then have to heat up all over again we have to find another way.

I'm just going to assume the car wouldn't start, because that would be a sensible way of melting snow, even if you were trapped in the car. Would also keep you nice and warm for a bit. I reckon even a little Fiesta would idle for 30 hours or so on a half tank.

Food

He had a bit of food, but it would have run out. Snow doesn't have any nutritional value, nor does any part of a regular car. So, let's play along with the whole "trapped in the car" lark. What's going to happen here? Well, first we'll consume the sugars stored in muscles and the liver, then we're going to burn lean muscle and fats. The rule of thumb is that we can last about month without any food and make a complete recovery. There are a few contributing factors to this, largely environmental, but also some biological. 

So how did he last that long? Well, I'm going to assume that he had a bit of food kicking around, he kept as warm as possible, he had a little more fat than the average guy and was just one of those people who last longer. 

He was reportedly malnourished, which you'd expect. There is also a possibility that's he's had permanent internal damage, but at least he's alive.

Hibernation

Some sources suggested he went into a state akin to hibernation. Really? Come on!

Escape

This section is left for an exercise for the reader.


All in all, I don't buy it. It seems to be that the chap did not make the effort to try to survive, just curled up and waited to die. Maybe there was something more psychological going on. Maybe he wasn't really there for two months. Maybe he wasn't really trapped in the car. Who knows. It was interesting exploring the possibilities though.

Give some thought to the preparation you might now make, if you risked ending up in the same situation and the actions you might take to get yourself out of the situation in a more timely fashion.

Don't Panic!

You don't have to find yourself in a plane crash or earthquake to start applying survival techniques. In the UK, we are more likely to find ourselves affect by flood or cut off from our day to day by the snow. This winter, as seems to be an annual event, the British roads were crippled by a snow storm leaving countless motorist stuck out in the cold.

North Devon - 2am

How inconvenient it was for our weather system to dump a pile of snow on the roads eliciting the slightly late response of a fleet of gritting lorries to cover the road in salty goodness. This did nothing more than create a slushy film on top of an already compacted layer of snow which subsequently froze solid when the temperature dropped below minus seven, which is when the salt stops doing its job properly. Nightmare! My poor mate spun his little Cleo and reverse parked it into a ditch. With the RAC being frankly rubbish, he took refuge in a parked lorry, gave us a ring and asked us to come and pick him up. We packed a 4x4 with sleeping bags, shovel, basha, bow saw, hot chocolate and a pack of mince pies, stuck The Greatest Rock Album in the World Ever on the stereo and went to get him ourselves. He was extremely grateful and we only took the piss a little bit.

I had my own encounter with this phenomenon at one of the sites which is accessed by a long track. Without the benefit of a gritter, this track had developed a pair of icy lanes simply by the sun melting the top layer and it freezing again. I set off slowly from the top of the hill, testing my brakes as I went and it was all going well until I got close to the gate which I'd have to stop to open. Did I stop? No, of course I didn't. I couldn't even get out of the ruts and onto the fluffy stuff, the car kept sliding back down into the slippery bit and it was only by the grace of a few protruding stones that I managed to get enough traction to stop. Inching my way down, I managed to get through the gate and faced stage two which became steeper and culminated in a short glassy run to the main road. If that wasn't enough, my handbrake, which had recently had the cable replaced, was not holding consistently. I couldn't go forwards, backwards, turn around or stay still without having to be in the car myself. I did the only sensible thing I could think of; I lit a cigarette and phoned my assistant instructor to come down and get involved in the comedy.

He arrived, rope in hand wearing a deserved smirk. First we chocked the car, lit another cigarette and sucked air through our teeth. We figured that if the car was going to keep sliding, our best plan was to create an area with traction and attempt to brake before hitting the road. We stuck a few branches further down the track, just in case. Having identified the flattest section, we tried chipping it, deicing it, throwing neat screen wash on it. Nothing worked.

Plan B involved creeping down the hill then using a bit of power to get off the shiny bit and on to the side. This turned out to work well and even though it was not an exciting or technical solution, I eventually made it down the rest of the track. My colleague directed the traffic to stop and I made it back onto the tarmac and went on my way, albeit an hour or so late. I ended up returning in the dark, parked at the pub and walked up through the woods back to site. Thankfully, I always keep a torch in the car.

The moral of these stories is one of anticipation, preparation and that if all else fails, ring your mates and they'll come and help. They might make it more of a mission than necessary and they will almost certainly have a good giggle at your expense. It is important remember your priorities in these matters; protection from further danger, analysis of resources, protection from the elements and if self rescue is difficult or dangerous, enlist the help of whoever you can. Whatever you do, don't get stuck, take risks or try to man your way through a tough situation. Don't underestimate the time these things take and plan for the worst at each stage.

Be safe on the roads this winter readers. My advice is to assume you'll get affected by bad weather and always take a tool kit, sleeping bag, first aid kit, waterproofs, rope, small shovel, plenty of spare screen wash and a working mobile phone with a car charger. Ensure your car is in good working order, especially the brakes and don't wait until your tires become illegally bare before changing them. All in all, know the limits of your vehicle and don't take risks.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

My birthday falls far too close to Christmas for my liking, but it is with eager anticipation that I await the moment when the unwrapping may begin having waited 363 days since the last episode. This year, I was very happy to receive some really foodie presents; fine wine, single malt whiskey, chocolate, coffee and cheese; perfect for the man that really has no interest in cuff links, ties, slippers and ... hold on, no, I do like really good socks.

Whilst munching my way through a cold venison and piccalilli sandwich this boxing day, I cast my mind back to the last course I'd run, which had been mid December in Gloucestershire. There was snow on the ground then too and I remember distinctly standing around explaining, as I do, that there was still food to be foraged to the apparent disbelief of the clients who had basically resigned themselves to an evening meal of snow and icy mud pies.


There are around ten thousand edible species in Europe alone. Early man in England would routinely use a couple of hundred wild foods, whereas modern man uses far less. Thankfully, you don't need to know hundreds of plants in order survive; just think for a moment about the number of different vegetables an average teenager eats, they don't die from that diet, so there is no reason to die from what seems like a limited diet in the wild. If you know six or seven prolific plants in your area which cover a range of types then survival is possible.

Season is just one of the factors which affect wild food availability, and winter does pose a challenge, but it doesn't mean there is nothing. On that particular week, we came across:

Bramble

• Nettle
• Bramble
• Dandelion
• Sorrel
• Plantains
• Silverweed
• Burdock
• Rose Hips
• Haws
• Beech Nuts (very few)
• Jew's Ear

That's a fantastic selection of leaves, roots, tubers, nuts, fruit, seeds and fungi giving anyone a good balanced diet in a survival situation. The clients were genuinely surprised as to how many of them they already recognised and the fact that a diet of these alone would be sufficient to live.

Of course, there are many more wild edibles available in the winter months, but they generally don't all hang out together. We were in a mid successional woodland consisting mainly of Beech and Hazel. There is no Pine there, for instance, which is an excellent source of Vitamin C throughout the year.

Don't be concerned about learning every single wild edible, it's a never ending task and though enjoyable, can be seen as a mammoth task which many people give up on before they start. Instead, learn enough plants so that you'll find half a dozen or so at any time of year. If you're lucky enough to be trekking through an unusual environment, like the rain forest of South America, take the time to learn a dozen plants which you could eat, should you be unfortunate enough to find yourself in a genuine survival situation.