Thirty years ago, studies of hypothermia helped
to save lives and put the university's emerging
research program on the map.
JOHN HAYWARD SETTLES IN TO
TALK AFTER A MORNING OF FISHING on Juan de Fuca
Strait. In past years he might have been in the
water, not on it. Beginning in the 1970s, the
thermal biologist became one of the leaders of
pioneering research on hypothermia and its influence
on the human body. His Cold Water Research Project
is best known for its famous spin off, the UVic
"I haven't looked at this for
years," says Hayward, flipping through the pages
of an old scrapbook. " UVic team probes cold
water deaths ," reads one newspaper clipping. "$
1.95 toy could save your life " and " World demand
swells for UVic Thermofloat coat " proclaim other
headlines. One article has a photo of Hayward's
son sitting on the inflatable "sea seat." Another
has pictures of Hayward and his collaborators
floating in testing tanks.
Now retired, Hayward lives
with his wife Mary and their dog in a log cabin
by Elk Lake. They moved to Victoria in 1969,
during one of the university's early hiring sprees.
Hayward's background was in comparative physiology,
looking at how different animals-mainly bats-regulate
their core temperatures during hibernation.
At that time Hayward was friendly
with a young professor in the physical education
department, John Eckerson, whose research also
involved temperature regulation. In 1971, a tragic
event brought them into a professional collaboration.
A good friend of Eckerson's died in a boating
accident in the Juan de Fuca Strait. The coroner
declared that the death was due to drowning. "It
was clear to those that knew the story that drowning
was secondary to the main problem, which was
hypothermia," says Hayward. The two decided to
use their expertise to investigate.
"In the early '70s, people
didn't quite appreciate that hypothermia was
a major killer. It was all 'drowning'," explains
Hayward. "You wouldn't hear 'hypothermia' in
1970. Now it's all over the place, partly due
to the work that we did here at UVic."
Hayward and Eckerson's first
experiment measured the metabolic response of
humans immersed in cold water. Using Canadian
Forces boats and a team of student volunteers,
the researchers connected the subjects to internal
and external temperature monitors, immersed them
in cold ocean water, and watched to see how quickly
their core temperatures would drop. "Right away,
we were able to tell people something about expected
survival time," says Hayward. "After 15 or 20
minutes, you're shivering strongly like you never
have before, getting stiffer in the limbs, and
you think you're just about dead. But it turns
out, as we showed here in the strait, that it
takes 15 minutes before the core starts cooling.
You can last longer than you think, and [knowing]
that gives you a psychology of survival."
The results of this first study
were so interesting that Hayward, Eckerson, and
a third colleague, Martin Collis, began a collaboration
that lasted over 20 years. Their experiments
looked at survival in water of different temperatures;
the effects of gender, age and body composition
on survival time; the performance of different
types of protective gear; and the best methods
for treating a hypothermia victim.
The UVic group was not only
doing groundbreaking science-the results were
helping boaters. There were public lectures,
newspaper articles and a series of information
pamphlets to communicate findings to the public.
Over the years, the team also invented and patented
a series of protective devices designed to help
boaters, the most widely known being the UVic
Thermofloat coat. Using his knowledge of how
the body loses heat, Hayward used a floater jacket
from a local company and modified it with hidden
features to provide more thermal protection.
He added extra padding in the areas most prone
to losing heat-the neck and the sides of the
body. He sewed a neoprene flap inside the back
of the jacket that could be turned into a pair
of shorts in case of emergency, protecting the
groin from heat loss and preventing cold water
from flushing through the jacket. The result
was an affordable coat that provided thermal
protection previously unavailable to regular
boaters. "Year after year, there were testimonials
about people being saved by the Thermofloat coat," says
Mark Pakenham, who spent 35 years with the Coast
Guard's Victoria branch.
The company that manufactured
the jacket, Mustang International, was just a
small Vancouver sportswear company in the 1970s;
today, it is a household name with 425 employees
and headquarters in both Canada and the US. "It
kind of put us both on the radar screen," says
Dwight Davies, who is now CEO of Mustang.
Apart from bringing public
awareness of basic research at UVic and saving
countless lives, the Thermofloat patent brought
in more money than all other university patents
Hayward, who earned a gold
medal from the Science Council of BC for industrial
innovation, remembers it all fondly. "I started
off as the bat man of Alberta, and I ended up as
the cold man of BC-and more."
Survival Science | Freezing
for a cause