Back in the summer of 2017, it was briefly front-page news in Germany over four young Germans in the German Army....who'd collapsed in the middle of a march. One of the four eventually died.
The story got brought up by ARD (public TV, Channel One) today.
There's been a full report over the episode, yet to be fully released....but talk is that it'll strongly suggest that the problems with heat exhaustion over the four, and the death of the one individual...could have been prevented.
The suggestion here is that the Bundeswehr already has standards existing and if they'd be adhered to....the death would not have occurred.
Criminal proceedings? It'll be handed to some prosecutor and likely discussed.
Some people would say that the summer temperatures in Germany aren't a big deal and regular hydration is enough to handle 99-percent of heat issues. I tend to agree with that. But you have these higher temperature days which come up....where the temperature might climb above 28 degrees C (82 degrees F). A long hike started in the morning might go well until you get to the 1 PM stage and start to forget about regular hydration.
As a young guy, they sent me off to central Texas in July for military training. There was a hyped-up sense there about heat, hydration, and avoiding afternoon marching or hiking. Some guy would document the hour by hour conditions on the base, and they'd relax everything if some 'red' condition existed. I'm guessing the German Army has basically the same type of rules.
The influence of additives? Well, this is the topic which some former Bundeswehr members bring up. Prior to the 1990s....water and occasionally some Gatorade-like substance were the typical hydration choices. Now? People mix in various elements which might have consequences. For example....someone might be stupid enough to have two high-caffeine drinks prior to a 10km march....thinking that's not going to have any consequence.
In the early 1990s....I worked for a year at Bitburg. At some point in the summer period, we had a Lt in the shop who went out on a Sunday for a volksmarch. He apparently settled on the idea of a 10km route, and had little to drink over the first half of this (it was a pretty hot day, at 32 degrees C). At some point, he collapsed and an ambulance got called out. He spent the weekend at the base hospital and was back to work on Tuesday. To him, it wasn't extra hot but he just didn't hydrate well.
For the training folks, this will be dragged out and hundreds of questions asked over just how hard you should test young German military members.
No comments:
Post a Comment