PB, I truly appreciate your posts here. I do. I resent nothing. What bothers me is the contrast at the beginning and ending of the scenario you present and all the truth it may hold: a girl running for her life next to an image of a girl burrowing to die. That contrast in that picture bothers me. Not you.
The last line of this list bothers me too:
http://medicalchemy.blogspot.com/2010/10/terminal-burrowing-hide-and-die.html
I take it, it's that one:
Outdoor episodes occur when the person is lost in chilly, but not freezing, weather.
That's a bit misunderstanding worded, especially when you reference it to this case.
- if the air temperature is 60F and your clothes are wet, you lode body warmth rather like about 50F. Maybe not exactly 10F less, but something in that range (sorry, my brain works rather metric/Celsius, so the conversations are not accurate on exact 1F)
- if the weather is freezing, chances are, the victim will actually freeze before falling into an undressing pattern. The pattern has sometimes not enough time to evolve because something else kills the victim faster. Thus, the 1/3 of the victims show this pattern is rather true for very cold situations, the 1/2 rather true for more moderate situations- In extreme situations, it almost never occurs (for example people from torpedoed ships in the acrtic sey convoys never tried to undress, they were frozen hard in like 5 minutes in the water anyway).
- in this specific case, and in my opinion, drugs were involved. Especially ecstasy, some prescription drugs and especially in the combination with alcohol, tend to mess with the bodies heat control. People are too hyped up to notice the signs and don't react as they would normally. Which is the reason for the high number of fatal cases after certain techno parties. Such a combination of drug/alcohol would also lead to deviations from the usual numbers one would estimate for paradoxical undressing cases. For example, since the drugs would raise body heat anyway (as would the adrenaline rush caused by drug induces paranoia), paradoxical undressing would set in earlier than usually expected. Thus, the level of actual exhaustion would at that point be lower than usually and the distance to the body longer.
- terminal burying happens only in cases in which a place is actually available. No cave, the victim won't hide in a cave. And since SG had only her finger nails at her disposal, also not too much burying at all.
- We should keep in mind, that the final COD is undetermined. Means, there is a number of possible CODs. I pointed out already earlier, there is a possibility of heat stroke caused by drugs messing with the temperature controling of the body, stroke, heart attack (from the same source) or also the possibility of losing consciousness (a condition in which a person can drown in just 1 inch of water). So there is a real possibility, something from that list killed SG before hypothermia actually did.
And I can understand, that discrepancy bothers you. But in fact, it's pretty common. A panic rush, regardless whether from real reasons or drug induced, causes adrenaline. Depending on your individual parameters (size and effectivity of adrenal glands, amount of blood, physical fitness, certain brain conditions and so on), this gives a person about 10-30 minutes of real crazy power. After that time, the adrenaline level sinks and the person feels either relief (if she thinks, she got away from the danger) or desperation (because she is exhausted and the danger is still there. Which for sure is true for a danger that exists only in her imagination, since it travels with her). At this point, desperation leads very often to surrender. Only, if a person in a state of paranoia surrenders at home or in a hospital, nothing fatal will happen, at least in most cases. But SG was out there in the marsh.