white star line 2 titanic 2 virtual sailor

What Joughin would have had, however, is the awesome, life-saving power of liquid courage.Īlcohol remains a leading cause of humans getting into fatal situations, including freezing to death. “At low to moderate doses of alcohol, cold will win out,” said Giesbrecht, a University of Manitoba professor who has performed hundreds of cold-water immersion studies. One of the last photos ever taken of the RMS Titanic. However, Canadian hypothermia expert Gordon Giesbrecht figures that in the -2 C temperature of the North Atlantic, the water was cold enough to quickly tighten Joughin’s blood vessels and cancel out any effect of the alcohol.

In a survival situation, having all that warm blood away from the vital organs means that the drinker is at greater risk of hypothermia. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The warming sensation of a glass of brandy (and the telltale red cheeks that sometimes results) is caused by vasodilation, the phenomenon of warm blood rushing to the surface of the skin. To be sure, a good rule of thumb is that a drunk man will usually freeze to death faster than a sober man. And, according to the British Titanic inquiry, it was because the 33-year-old Englishman had the presence of mind to greet history’s greatest maritime disaster by getting smashed. It was an almost physiologically impossible feat of survival. Contemporary etching of the British Titanic inquiry. After being fished out by a lifeboat, he was back at work within days.

Then, as 1,500 screaming, panicked souls drowned and froze to death around him, Joughin calmly paddled around until dawn. The baker had nonchalantly stepped off the stern of the sinking liner. “I think his getting a drink had a lot to do with saving his life.”īefore the inquiry sat Charles Joughin, the chief baker of the RMS Titanic and one of the most remarkable survival stories of that fateful night. “This is very important,” said the questioner, shushing the wigged Wreck Commissioner when asked the purpose of this booze-related interrogation.

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White star line 2 titanic 2 virtual sailor