Russian kitesurfer dies in Kaliningrad

[dandaka]

Updates. He wore drysuit without underwear. Drysuit had a hole on a knee. No gloves, no hat, no safety vest.

[Toby]

Thanks for the info.

So he died of too cold?

[dandaka]

Most probably yes.

[salvino]

Dry suit failure is major risk.
Now I tend to choose steamer with appropriate layering for that very reason.
The newer wetsuits are a huge improvement in warmth and safety. Don't be fooled by false security in a dry suit.

[edt]

ok, let me tell you all something that might save your life. Hypothermia is a sneaky bastard. It never kills directly. What hypothermia does is reduce the power of the muscles and make your brain really stupid (like you drank a case of beer). Often you don't even know how stupid you are. If your drysuit gets a rip in it, and you are in very cold water, near freezing, you will have about 5 minutes of good physical strength left, maybe more, but you want to act promptly not in a panic, but promptly and with care. Pull a line to get near your kite and climb on top of it. So what I said about how hypothermia works. You first lose mental ability, power in the arms and legs, then after I mean it varies depending, maybe an hour you lose consciousness, but hypothermia isn't killing you yet, what happens, is you then lose the ability to keep your head above the water and drown. That's how hypothermia does it. But what if you keep your head above water? Well, you will last several hours maybe even a few days and still be able to be rescued and recover completely. That's what you have to know about hypothermia. If you can position yourself so you don't drown you will more than likely be rescued and be perfectly ok. It's not the cold that stops your heart it's the drowning. There are many cases of people left out for a few days who recovered completely, around here, there's a story of an ice fisher who fell in the ice freezing conditions air and water (no thermal protection stupid I know), and he also forgot to bring his ice picks to lever himself back on to the ice. He trashed around for about 5 minutes then lost all strength in his arms and legs. At this point, he thought he was gonna die. However, he had a long beard and while he had been panicking in the water he had splashed water up on to the ice and it had frozen, so his beard was stuck to the ice. A day later someone found him cut his beard off from the ice, pulled him out and after bringing his body back up to temperature he was perfectly fine.

Just remember this! If your drysuit springs a leak, and you can't get back to shore (no board, no wind), climb on top of your kite and even if you lose consciousness from hypothermia you will probably be perfectly fine when you get rescued hours later or even the next day.

there's a lot of myths about hypothermia one of them is that if you don't have proper thermal protection the cold just kills you. That's not how it works. As long as you can find some way to keep your head above water, you will last for a very long time hours or even days even if unconscious.

[Trigen]

Very sad news!

Ive had a hole in my suit once after hitting a rock in -3C airtemp and water barely comes in (unless the hole is huge) and you generally have a long time to get to shore before the suit fills . However going out in one with no layers offers 0 protection should you lie in the water. As sad as this is going out like that is just crazy. I tend to do most of my winter and cold weather kiting alone and i always make sure to stay close to shore and bring a change of clothes etc. Even if a hole is extremely rare and you really have to hit something hard to get one you never know what can happen!

Thoughts to his family RIP

[dandaka]

@edt Thank you for these details.

@Trigen 100 meters is pretty close and air/water conditions were far from extreme. Still harsh and that sad result. Lessons for everyone kiting in cold waters.

[jeromeL]

sad story...
considering EDT input about hypothermia, hypothetically if he made it back to the kite he might have survived?
One thing to consider is that he wasn't wearing gloves, that makes self rescuing really hard, after a minute in the water you loose all sensation in your hands and your dexterity goes to 0 if you can't see what you are doing, you can barely hold bar or pull lines...

A few sunny session this winter I went out without gloves for short tacks, felt nice gloveless but the spray really chill the hands, I considered against it because I realized I wouldn't be able to hit quick release or leash release if I can't feel my fingers...
Lately I have had to use quick release and leash release a few times trying new tricks so it's important to me to keep dexterity up.
Now I will avoid going without gloves until I can keep hands in water without loosing sensation.

Just the other day we went out in one of our usual spot and a kiter had his kite ripped in half pretty far from the main beach, it's a bay with lot of grassy islands and we were out a few channel away from main launch, the kiter had a pretty long swim back to the beach but was wearing big gloves and his drysuit stayed dry... Furthermore we were there to support him.

[edt]

sad story...
considering EDT input about hypothermia, hypothetically if he made it back to the kite he might have survived?

Absolutely. But you have to have the idea first. If you never are taught to lay on top of the kite it's a very difficult thing to suddenly think of when your drysuit springs a leak.

[alexeyga]

Basic story is the following:
-The guy was a local who regularly was doing downwinders to his home.
-This particular day he was wearing a drysuit, but no gloves or vest.
-He had a huge backpack with the pump and other stuff in it.
-Wind died, kite crashed sending him into a long body-dragging/trying to relaunch session.

Either he got hypothermic or he got dragged down by the backpack - in either case he was cold. When they managed to get him out of the water, his heart was still beating, but the emergency took 50mins to get there - which was too late.

RIP