HUNTINGsmart! USA Knowledge Base

The most important thing to know about cold water is this—if you fall in and you aren’t wearing a lifejacket, you probably won’t survive long enough to even worry about getting hypothermia. Cold shock will hit you first,  paralyzing your body from the sudden jolt of being in cold water and making it nearly impossible to swim. Hypothermia can take up to an hour to set in—think you could tread water for that long without a lifejacket on and with paralyzed limbs? Not likely.