Body temperature

[Magdalena]

Hello,
I recently received the ambulance call record for an elderly family member who suffered cardiac arrest.
EMT's responded in less than 5 minutes to the call.. The report states that the body was "cool". Can you tell how long the person had passed away by the body temperature being cool...Could it have been hours??

Thank you...I need to have an idea.

Magdalena

 

[JAM-EMT]

Usually during the first 24 hours you can tell by body temp depending on body mass, air temp, etc. I think the normal rate for temp. drop is 0.80 K/hr.

 

[JPINFV]

0.8 K/hour?

I see what you did there.

 

[JAM-EMT]

I did nothing, just what I remember from anatomy class in high school.

 

[JPINFV]

Hmm. I took K as Kelvin, which essentially Celsius with a different starting point. Maybe I'm using K to mean something than you meant.

 

[JAM-EMT]

Its Kelvin.

 

[seanm028]

Kelvin = Degrees Celsius + 273
(note: Kelvin is not measured in degrees. 20 degrees celsius is simply "293 Kelvin")

 

[JPINFV]

Cool. I've just never seen Kelvin used outside of lecture.

 

[mdtaylor]

The report states that the body was "cool". Can you tell how long the person had passed away by the body temperature being cool...Could it have been hours??

No, when the body is stressed it will shunt the blood restricting circulation to non essential organs (i.e. the skin) which will cause the skin to appear cool and pale. It really has nothing to do with time of death. Only the body's core temperature can give clues to the time of death, and that is still an estimate.

 

[Magdalena]

Thank you for your response, mdtaylor. It has eased my mind from thinking that maybe they had not noticed his distress in time.



Magdalena