brain freeze

Factual Questions
1

Cratko has a stiff neck. He pulled something in there while at the tennis court. Not actually playing, but turning his head to follow the ball. So when he went home later that night, he put one of those blue plastic ice pack things into the freezer. Upon going to bed, he takes it out and brings the frozen block of encased blue goo upstairs with him.

Cratko doesn’t think very well. He places the cold icee over his neck, actually over his carotid artery to be precised. And falls asleep.

Could this poor sap die during the night from excessive hypothermia? That is, if the ice pack is able to stay cool long enough, and it’s directly over his carotid, would the blood going to his brain get chilled, chilled to the point that the brain reached a cool 60 degrees and neuronal functioning stopped?

Or does the brain have some sort of backup arteries, or a warming mechanism? Thanks a bunchload.

jaundiced belly

2

Can’t cite anything, but I’ve heard anecdotes about shoplifters hiding frozen food under their hats and passing out from the chill.

3

seems to me that a cold pack over the carotid artery wouldn’t cool the blood passing through it that much… keep in mind that the artery id pretty huge, and the blood is moving right along! I doubt it would be cooled more than a degree or so, even if you could keep the pack cold all night long!

Now the SKIN directly below the cold pack is a different story! I would expect some freezer burn and eventual skin necrosis, which might be annoying…