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Weekend


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May 23, 2003

Strange But True!

  • A weekly column of incidental information, off-the-wall observations and other random facts about the world.
    • By BILL SONES and RICH SONES, Ph.D.
    Special to the Journal

    Q. In extreme circumstances such as wartime, bizarrely fortuitous advantages can make the difference between life and death. How bizarre can these get when a man battles to survive hypothermia in a cold sea?

    A. At the outbreak of World War II, recounts Oxford University physiologist Frances Ashcroft in "Life at the Extremes: The Science of Survival," her grandfather Walter was assigned to medical orderly, arrived at the front, and within months was shot in the knee. The wound became infected -- these were pre-antibiotic days -- and he was evacuated to England in critical condition.


     
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