But some did survive who would not have survived if the old default assumption had been applied.

Jean Hilliard is part of the evidence base that supports the new default.

Her case, documented and published and taught, contributes to the training of physicians who will encounter hypothermia patients in emergency rooms from Minnesota to Norway to everywhere that winter is serious and accidents happen in the cold.

She did not choose to make that contribution.

She simply survived.

But survival, in medicine, is a form of data.