The heat escape lessening position (HELP), is a way to position oneself to reduce heat loss in cold water. It is taught as part of the curriculum in Australia, North America, and Ireland for lifeguard and boating safety training. It involves essentially positioning one's knees together and hugging them close to the chest using one's arms. Furthermore, groups of people can huddle together in this position to conserve body heat, offer moral support and provide a larger target for rescuers.
The HELP position is an attempt to reduce heat loss enough to lessen the effect of hypothermia. Hypothermia is a condition where, essentially, bodily temperature drops too low to perform normal voluntary or involuntary functions. Cold water causes a type of this called immersion hypothermia, that can cause damage to extremities or the body's core.
The HELP position reduces exposure of high heat loss areas of the body. Wearing a personal flotation device allows a person to draw their knees to their chest and arms to their sides.
Famous quotes containing the words heat, escape and/or position:
“I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more—the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort—to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires—and expires, too soon, too soon—before life itself.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“Perhaps I am no one.
True, I have a body
and I cannot escape from it.
I would like to fly out of my head,
but that is out of the question.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)