Can you die of frostbite on a plane?

Very early Saturday morning, when decent folk are just going to bed (read: 3:30AM), Mack and I woke up so I could be dropped off at the airport for my flight to Seattle. Getting out of bed, the first thought that hit me was how unbearably cold it was in the middle of the night. Checking the temperature I saw it was about 39Â°F outside.

Again, I call b.s. that we live in Florida since isn’t Florida suppose to be warm and sunny? I realize we’re practically in Georgia but COME ON.

While I was living up in the northwest, I had a habit of layering so I didn’t die. I have a hard time maintaining body heat and typically am cold. This is especially a problem if I have not had food in awhile; my body temperature drops rapidly as a migraine sets in. My body, in other words, hates my guts and wishes it could spit on my grave. So, in anticipation, I put on about four layers on top (a tank-top, a long sleeve shirt, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt). All my bases were covered. I assumed since in general airport travel you get warm from running flight-to-flight I’d warm up and be able to shed layers.

I was surprised to find out that, instead, I was wishing I had put on more.Â

Unfortunately, there is no direct flight from our airport to Seattle so I had a layover in Atlanta, GA. To make matters more of a pain, the lay-over was about 30 minutes before my next flight was set to take off. Awesome. Since I have done a fair bit of traveling through Atlanta to get to Florida, I’m well versed in the airport and had a general idea as to how to navigate it. This did not stop me, however, from changing my seats on the flight the day before to the emergency exit by the door so I could sprint as soon as the doors opened.

The first flight, I was in the aisle and pretty tired and generally miserable. I brought a pillow, which I ended up using as a blanket of sorts. Cuddled up to it, with my scarf wrapped around my head a few times brought a certain degree of warmth, but I was chilled through the flight. When we hit Atlanta, I thought that perhaps the city would be warmer than Jacksonville and in walking from the plane to the terminal I’d warm up…

… not counting on it being 26Â°F in Atlanta, GA at 8 AM.Â

Getting off the plane, I was hit with the Arctic chill which greatly improved my tired state of high agitation to make it to my next flight. Luckily, my next flight was the same terminal and just ten gates down and the run there warmed me up to a degree…

… that is, until it turned out that my ugly unwanted-child of an exit row seat turned out to be by the open door that was left that way for twenty-minutes until everyone got on the plane.

Now, I say I was seated in the “ugly unwanted child of an exit row” since this flight was interesting in how they did the exit row. The two seats in front of me got the benefit of the leg room while me, in the window seat behind, got the “benefit” of if the plane went down I technically would be called to duty to help people and I also got the cold air leaking from the door.Â

As I dosed on and off through the flight, I would wake up suddenly, my foot numb and completely without feeling from the cold pouring in the nearby emergency exit. I’d have to stomp my feet, move them, work through the unbearable pain to get them to have some sort of feeling in them. I think I scared the dude next to me in doing all that while seated. I have a huge phobia and dislike of standing up while the plane is in the air. It’s almost as though the simple act of me getting up will make the plane take a nose dive and all of us DIE since I HAD to stand.

(How did I last the flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo? Let’s just say I timed it for the exact middle of the flight as to when to get up and go the bathroom and I was pretty dehydrated upon arrival).

As I stated above, I tend to get really cold when I’m hungry. I ate a bagel before leaving for the airport at 4AM and missed the “snack serve” on both flights, save for the last one an hour before landing. It got to the point with the cold air blowing on my feet and making them numb where I finally had to shove my pillow between my feet and the door just to have some sort of barrier of protection.

When I got to Seattle, I got off the plane and called Mack, willing my feet to get some feeling back in them and having the weirdest sensation of walking yet not feeling it. I guess it brings new meaning to “walking in the air” (or this amazing version too).