It is important to be clear about the limits of what the medical literature establishes for this case.

Jean Hilliard’s core temperature was never definitively measured at the time of her arrival at the hospital — the thermometers available could not read below a certain point, and the exact temperature of her core at the nadir of her hypothermia is not known.

Estimates have been offered, but they are estimates, based on the relationship between observed clinical presentation and body temperature established in other cases.

The “frozen solid” description, while accurate in terms of the clinical experience of the examining physician — skin too hard to inject, limbs too rigid to flex — is a description of the peripheral tissues rather than a confirmed measurement of core temperature below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.