CIA used Canada’s cold expertise

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Scientists in Canada whose research in surviving cold water is aimed saving lives have learned that the CIA used their work to develop an interrogation technique. The World’s Carol Hills has details.

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KATY CLARK:  Canada has a scientific feather in its cap. That cold northern country boasts several world-renowned experts in surviving cold temperatures.  Their groundbreaking research has improved the odds of survival for people like sailors, fishermen and those who happen to drive off of bridges into frigid water.  So it came as some surprise to one of those experts that his research has been used by the CIA to develop an interrogation technique.  The World’s Carol Hills reports.

CAROL HILLS: The report released this week by the Justice Department showed that in 2003, CIA officers began using a technique called ‘water dousing’. Not to be confused with water-boarding which is essentially controlled drowning, water dousing involves laying a detainee on a plastic sheet and pouring cold water over him for 10 to 15 minutes.  According to the report, an interrogator believed this was an effective technique, and sent a cable back to CIA headquarters requesting guidelines.  The return cable explained that a detainee, quote, “must be placed on a towel or sheet, may not be placed naked on the bare cement floor, and the air temperature must exceed 65 degrees,” if the detainee isn’t dried off immediately.  Gordon Geezbrecht is a thermophysiology professor at the University of Manitoba.  Yesterday he received an email from a colleague about how the report showed that the CIA had consulted Geezbrecht’s published research in developing the idea of water dousing

GORDON GEEZBRECHT: That was yesterday and today I’ve got a copy of this Red Cross, international Red Cross report, that actually interviews former detainees who actually report that some of these techniques were used on them.  So it became, it moved from theoretical to actual.

CAROL HILLS: His reaction:

GORDON GEEZBRECHT: It is a bit disturbing, for sure.

CAROL HILLS: Geezbrecht knows what it’s like to be immersed in cold water; he’s rendered himself hypothermic more than 40 times in his career.  His most famous immersion was on the David Letterman show in 2004, when he was plunged into a vat of ice water for 15 minutes.  Since then he’s been known as Dr. Popsicle.

GORDON GEEZBRECHT: We were able to take a two or three-hour experiment and condense it into one hour on national television and tell people that yes, cold water is dangerous, but you can survive it as long as you don’t panic.

CAROL HILLS: What he’s demonstrated, on Letterman and in his experiments, is that people can survive longer than they think in cold water.  He calls it the one-ten-one principle.

GORDON GEEZBRECHT: In ice water you have one minute to get your breathing under control, so don’t panic, and you have about ten minutes of meaningful movement, so you have time to figure out what to do to get out.  But then you do have to get moving, and you have an hour or more, one hour or more before you become unconscious due to hypothermia.

CAROL HILLS: But he says he meant his advice to be used to save people, not interrogate them.  For The World, I’m Carol Hills.

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