“There is no bad weather, only bad gear”.
I have gone skiing, downhill, in that weather, but I was dressed for it. The lifts means there’s some enforced sitting. You have to have the habit to not stop wiggling your fingers and toes any time you’re still, and you go inside at regular intervals. Also, not gloves, mittens.
Also being accustomed to bad weather also means knowing when to go inside and call it a day. Same as how people unaccustomed to bad weather die on hikes by not knowing they should turn around.
I believe most of the affected were tailgaiting outside the stadium. They should be suing both the stadium management and the NFL. No reason to subject fans and employees to these type of conditions.
Some of these comments are giving me flashbacks to marching band in late November - performing shows on windy days, sitting on metal bleachers, holding a flute an icicle, while wearing a synthetic blend uniform and cotton gloves with the fingers cut out.
Yup. Football games were much longer than the halftime show. Too many layers under the uniform made it difficult to move, and were frowned upon by our band director.
Yikes. I have jokingly blamed those days for stiffness in my fingers when it’s cold now. Unfortunately, we couldn’t wear mittens in the stands since we had to play fight songs to encourage the team and the fans throughout the games.
Looking at the image above reminded me that our uniforms had long sleeves and pants, so we sweltered in the summer heat, too. Good times.
That’s why I’m warning people about how quick and easy it can happen. I was wearing my long coat, which always has a pair of winter gloves in one of the pockets because the only time I’d ever need them, I’d already be wearing my longest, thickest coat. So I actually was prepared.
But I’ve never gotten frostnip before. If I remember right, it was around 10 to 14 degrees below zero that night, but it had already been below freezing for weeks and the difference didn’t feel like that much. I wasn’t wearing a hat, but my nose and ears felt fine, and my hands were fine on the way over in my pockets. So when I stepped out of the store, already carrying two heavy bags of groceries, stopping everything to put on gloves wasn’t my first thought. After walking a block, my hands were freezing (literally, I guess) and partly numb but I was only one block from home now, so I figured cold hands, big deal, I’ll tough it out and just walk a bit faster despite the discomfort. It was only when I got home and inside and my hands felt waxen and the cold seemed to be taking forever to wear off that I realized uh oh, I may have actually done some real damage here. It just didn’t seem possible in such a short distance and short amount of time.
I can kind of see how people can get into the danger zone on this. If it was -4 F and i asked a dozen people to bring lawn chairs and sit in a field for four hours nobody would do it. But thousands of people going into a football stadium and it suddenly seems more reasonable
Man that was a really fucking cold day - and i stayed inside. People seem to under estimate how fucking cold the wind chill gets, and thinks because they are at a stadium, they will be “ok” and under dress. You really needed highly insulated mittens and if possible those kind you can put heat pads into.
But, I wonder how many patients they treated total. Was it 10, with 7 needing amputations? More?
This was the 4th coldest game in NFL history, and colder than any game ever played in Buffalo. And in the infamous Ice Bowl in Green Bay, even several players suffered frostbite, and one fan in the stands died. Buffalo’s coldest game was a playoff game against the Raiders in 1994. In that game, 100 fans were treated for frostbite and other weather related injuries. No one is prepared for these kinds of cold temperatures. Most people don’t have experience with it because most people stay inside their homes when it gets this cold. So most people underestimate the danger, regardless of where they’re from.
Now there’s a good sports trivia question! I wonder what led to the overlapping seasons, too. Covered arenas made it possible to keep some going despite cold/stormy weather, however climate change is affecting what used to be considered “safe” times of year for outdoor sports, too. Maybe professional leagues will put more of their money into HVAC and retractable roof systems in the future.
Especially if tailgaters were among the most heavily hit I’d having to imagine that alcohol didn’t help: both blurring judgement and perception of pain; and playing that vasodilator/vasoconstrictor game that is likely to make the situation feel less severe in the short term but (at best) not change the fact that your metabolic heat output just isn’t going to cut it at those temperatures; and at worst exacerbate the problem once it gets going.
I’d be curious what, if any, historical practice and guidance there is for event organizers: I suspect that the reaction could have had a significant percentage of ‘uncooperative to actively combative’ if they’d sent security in to tell people that the party’s over, thermal excursion, and herded them inside or into heated tents or similar; but that (at least in retrospect) even a lot of the people being belligerent about it would be glad that someone ordered them around like a child before they got to the amputation stage.
My (layman’s) understanding is that there’s a fair amount of theory(with practice compromised by limited resources and a certain amount of systemic indifference) around the management of individual adults doing self-destructive things in public(especially if accompanied by ‘crazy’-appearing behavior that makes it easier to justify the relevant state rules for an involuntary psych action); and a fair amount of practical experience surrounding the idea that people who throw outdoor concerts in hot climates should have a mechanism for collecting and treating the heatstroke and dehydration cases before they become deaths; but in those cases the person who needs assistance is typically incapacitated in a visible and somewhat alarming way which helps sell having the medics haul them off.
Does anyone now if, and if so what, the ‘best practice’ consensus is for a situation like this: where there’s a well understood risk tied to the conditions an event is being held in; but it’s one that leaves the victims potentially unaware, and in reasonably standard state of mind even well past the point where intervention would be needed; so some combination of suasion and outright coercion might well be required(unlike the ‘picking up the heatstroke cases’ one; where the victim is in no position to refuse standard of care and the symptoms are alarming enough that any bystanders or companions are less likely to object)?
I’m just thinking, baseball is from spring until about the beginning of fall. So did they make football outside of that time frame so it could have its own ad space?
Maybe professional leagues will put more of their money into HVAC and retractable roof systems in the future. 
