Portable thermal rescue/recovery system

A personally portable system for rapidly changing and controlling the temperature of the body, a limb, the head or other portion of the body of a mammal using energy transfer between a liquid which includes water or another aqueous liquid and the skin of the mammal, by direct liquid-to-skin contact including:

• (a) a disposable mummy bag sized to conform to the shape of the body or the portion of the body of the mammal having an upper end with an adjustable opening, a closed lower end with a drain and made of a layer of a water-proof materials;
• (b) a plastic container which can be sealed and unsealed for transporting to the mammal the liquid which has been adjusted to the desired temperature with a means to pour the liquid into the bag structure through the adjustable opening;
• (c) a water-proof seam on the upper surface of the water-proof material of the mummy bag which can be unsealed and then resealed, providing an opening sufficiently large to allow easy insertion into the mummy bag of the body or a portion of the body of the mammal whose temperature is to be controlled;
• (d) along the sides of the mummy bag, imbedded in the water-proof materials, a series of inflatable bladders running from the lower end to the upper end of the mummy bag along the body or the portion of the body of the mammal, which can be inflated to improve the conformance of the mummy bag to the shape of the body or the portion of the body of the mammal whose temperature is controlled while at the same time providing channels for the liquid to flow between the bladders and along the skin of the mammal;
• (e) means for manually generating pressure to transport the liquid from one end to the other end of the mummy bag selected from a group including, (i) a hand pump, (ii) a foot pump, (iii) a bellows, or (iv) a tube into which air is blown;
• (f) means at the lower end of the mummy bag to open the drain, allowing gravity pressure to empty the bag structure and to close the drain before additional liquids of the desired temperature are introduced at the upper end;
• (g) a separate outer coveting of the mummy bag made of a thin water-proof insulating material having at least three circumferential straps which after the bladders and amount of liquid are set, are used to adjust the total volume of the combination of the mammal or the portion of the mammal and the liquid in the bag structure to achieve the desired level of flotation, the desired amount of body weight which is supported by contact with the mummy bag and the desired rate of liquid flow along the body of the mammal.