Micturating Rescue

Man peed way out of avalanche | Ananova | 1.28.05

A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains. …

He had 60 half-litre bottles of beer in his car as he was going on holiday, and after cracking one open to think about the problem he realised he could urinate on the snow to melt it, local media reported.

He said: “I was scooping the snow from above me and packing it down below the window, and then I peed on it to melt it. It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt. But I’m glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there.” …

Hat tip P²

Not to mention the large micturated volume, in addition to the thermal impact, had a lowering of the freezing-point impact (ethanol, in this case, was a desperate man’s ethylene glycol). Surely with such large volumes there was insufficient urea to affect the freezing point…

I’m somewhat skeptical on this one—I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to be an urban legend. Thirty liters (six times the blood volume of the 70 Kg adult male) of cold beer consumed would leave this guy incredibily hypothermic, and not to mention just a tad ketotic.