Frozen, the Take-Home Edition.
Do not do this
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It feels like we probably don’t need to cover this in much depth. You’re such a good group. Odds are pretty high that none of you would walk unprepared — or defiantly under-dressed — into a football stadium with a temperature at kickoff of minus-4 and dropping.
But I imagine that you wondered, watching the people who did just that on Jan. 13 in Kansas City, that playoff game against Miami. You wondered things like:
Superfans or idiots?
Does no one advise these people?
Do their weather apps not work?
They’ll probably freeze, right?
Yeah. They froze.
According to K.C. television station Fox4, some 70 percent of the folks who have come into the Grossman Burn Center there this winter for treatment are now facing amputations because of severe frostbite. And the medical director of the center says many of those victims — dozens of victims in all — are fans who went to the Chiefs-Dolphins tilt.
When you get frostbite, your skin freezes. That’s the highly un-technical explanation. Blood flow is thus limited to the tissues in the area of the freeze. Mild frostbite is called frostnip, and there’s no permanent damage. But severe frostbite leads to stories like this.
As it turns out, a lot of the folks at Arrowhead that evening had either been in severe cold before (highly possible) or did some very well-informed reading before they left for the stadium. Those people not only bundled and layered up, but brought cardboard sheets with them to the game.
Cardboard? Yes indeed. The fans placed those cardboard sheets on the ground, insulating their shoes from the frozen concrete stands beneath their feet. Smart!
Anyway, it got cold. It got so cold that Patrick Mahomes had to change helmets because his became so frozen that it cracked and chipped…
…and he had to replace it with his backup, which Mahomes did not love because it had been sitting unattended on the sideline and was, you know, frozen.
On the other hand(s), Mahomes still has all his digits. Word to the wise: If at all possible, on a sub-zero NFL day, be part of the team.
Darwin Award nominees…🙄