Despite the overly ominous title of this post, the Ice Bucket Challenge is a pretty safe and fun way to raise awareness and donations for those battling ALS. For those of you who haven’t heard, the Ice Bucket Challenge involves dumping a bucket of ice cold water over your head. Once you complete the challenge you can nominate three friends to take the challenge within 24 hours.
If they decline, they are supposed to donate $100 to the ALS Association. If they accept, they are asked to videotape themselves completing the challenge and make a donation of their choosing to the ALS Association.
The trend is sweeping the nation, but there are some precautions you should take. We discuss the potential dangers below.
- Cold Shock – The elderly, anyone with a heart condition and pregnant women should avoid the challenge as the cold sensation can cause your body to go into a temporary shock. If you’re really keen to participate, use warmer water or simply donate.
- Eyewear – Goggles or protective eyewear are smart choices if you really load up the bucket with ice. You wouldn’t want to have your eye damaged by a rouge ice cube.
- Hypothermia – Although you’re unlikely to suffer hypothermia from a second or two of ice cold water, avoid the challenge on particularly cold days, and always have towels and dry clothes nearby.
- Head trauma – If done incorrectly, a person can suffer serious head injuries if they try to make the challenge more extreme. A simple Youtube search of “Ice Bucket Fail” shows people attempting to dump plastic bins from 10-15 feet in the air. As you can see in the video below, if the pourer has a loose grip, the unsuspecting challenger can be injured badly. Avoid dumping the bucket from high heights, avoid large bins that weigh a lot, and don’t use a glass container.
What is ALS?
ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and it’s also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that weakens the nerve cells in the brain and throughout the spinal cord. As the ALS Association describes on their website, “Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.”
ALS is an awful disease because a fully functioning person slowly loses his or her ability to preform even the simplest tasks. That’s why it’s so important we find a cure. For more information about ALS, or to donate, click here.
