EclectEcon

Economics and the mid-life crisis have much in common: Both dwell on foregone opportunities

C'est la vie; c'est la guerre; c'est la pomme de terre . . . . . . . . . . . . . email: jpalmer at uwo dot ca


. . . . . . . . . . .Richard Posner should be awarded the next Nobel Prize in Economics . . . . . . . . . . . .

Monday, January 31, 2005

Man Urinates Way Out of Avalanche


A survival story from AlexK:

A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.
Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.

... He said: "I was scooping the snow from above me and packing it down below the window, and then I peed on it to melt it.

My guess is that the calories in the beer helped him stay warm and heat up the fluid; otherwise it might have been just as effective (and quicker) to pour the beer directly on the snow.

Afterthought: Does this really seem plausible? How long would it take to drink 60 bottles of beer? And how much did he sleep? And how long did his flashlight last (assuming he had one)? The reason I ask is that I know I would pass out after 6 bottles of beer. One of my former colleagues, however, ....
 
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