A Swedish man who spent two months
snowed inside his car as temperatures
outside dropped to -30C is "awake and able to
communicate", according to the hospital
treating him, where stunned doctors believe
he was kept alive by the "igloo effect" of his
vehicle.

The man, believed to be Peter Skyllberg,
44, who was found near the north-eastern town of Umeå on Friday by passers-by, told
police he had been in the car since
19 December without food, surviving only by
eating snow and staying inside his warm
clothes and sleeping bag.
Dr Ulf Segerberg, the chief medical
officer at Noorland's University Hospital , said
he had never seen a case like it. The man
had probably been kept alive, he said, by the
natural warming properties of his snowed-in
car which would have acted as "the
equivalent of an igloo".

"This man obviously had good clothes;
he's had a sleeping bag and he's been in a
car that's been snowed over," said Segerberg.
"Igloos usually have a temperature of a
couple of degrees below 0C and if you have
good clothes you would survive in those
temperatures and be able to preserve your
body temperature. Obviously he has managed
to preserve his body temperature or he
wouldn't have made it because us humans
can't really stand being cooled down like
reptiles, for instance, which can change the
body temperature."

Two months was at the "upper limit" of
what a person would be able to survive
without food, added Segerberg.
Skyllberg was found emaciated and very
weak by a pair of snowmobilers who thought
they had found a crashed car. They dug
down through about a metre of snow to see
its driver lying on the back seat in his
sleeping bag, according to Ebbe Nyberg, a
local police officer.

"They were amazed at what they found: a
man in his mid-40s huddled inside in a
sleeping bag, starving and barely able to
move or speak," Nyberg, working in
Vaesterbotten county, was quoted as saying.
A rescuer told the local newspaper
Västerbottens-Kuriren: "It's just incredible
that he's alive considering that he had no
food, but also since it's been really cold for
some time after Christmas."
Police said temperatures around Umeå
had fallen to -30C. One doctor, Stefan Branth,
said Skyllberg may have survived by going
into hibernation mode. "A bit like a bear that
hibernates. Humans can do that. He probably
had a body temperature of around 31C which
the body adjusted to. Due to the low
temperature, not much energy was used up."

But Segerberg said he was "sceptical" of
this suggestion. "We can't lower body
temperature very much. A little bit we can,
but if we lower body temperatures more than
just a little bit, we lose consciousness and go
into a coma," he said, cautioning that it was
not his area of expertise.
Skyllberg is being treated in an ordinary
ward in the University Hospital, where
Segerberg said he was "feeling well". It was
unclear how he had come to be stranded in
the deserted lane.
Segerberg said that, even in a part of the
world where sub-zero temperatures and
heavy snow are the norm, this case was
unusual. "There have been cases of people
caught out in the mountains, and if they can
dig themselves down in the snow they are
able to survive and be found. But there must
be something special in this case."


www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/19/man-trapped-snowed-car-hospital

There must be something special in this case. Some people have got a will to live.

He's been there since 19th of December, how does that add up to 2 months?

Another link

m.smh.com.au/world/igloo-effect-saved-mans-life-20120220-1tjhj.html

chaircover: 2 months or 2 weeks?

Two months. This actually happened in Dec 2012 and he was rescued by February 2013.

Tyche:

Two months. This actually happened in Dec 2012 and he was rescued by February 2013.

Which means this "news" is stale.

OluwaKoopa:

Which means this "news" is stale.

Which could also mean a man can survive this long without food.

Food for thought