Page 43 - JSOM Winter 2025

or fuel and are not viable in a resource-limited environment.
Additionally, with the current capabilities of thermal imaging,
these methods are often not preferable and can contribute to
enemy detection.

Methods
Medication and intravenous (IV) fluids were placed inside a
Dometic CoolFreeze CFX-65 professional cooling container
at room temperature just before the start of Nordic Response FIGURE 2 Inside
2024, a 10-day deep-ops arctic field exercise in northern Nor- and outside
way’s Finnmark region. temperatures for
the entire period.
This cooling container is normally intended to keep medica-
tion within a controlled temperature when operating in warm
conditions. The cooling container was not attached to a power
source, and only the isolating capabilities of the container
were used to maintain the temperature. Within the container
®
we placed three Nalgene 1L wide mouth sustain water bot-
tles, filled with boiling water.
The cooling container was placed inside one of the Hägglunds
®
Bandvagn 206 (BV 206) vehicles, used by the medical team
(Figure 1). The bottles were reheated one by one every morn- Inside the cooling container, a controlled temperature was
ing by the service members. measured for 67.8% of the time (178.3 hours). The tempera-
ture inside the cooling container was above 25°C (77°F) for
Two TempTale 4 temperature loggers were used to measure 11.9% of the time (a total of 31.3 hours), and under 15°C
®
the temperature. One was placed alongside the cooling con- (59°F) for 20.3% of the time (53.5 hours). Inside the cool-
tainer to measure the ambient temperature, and one was placed ing container we measured a minimum temperature of 6.2°C
inside the container next to the medication and IV fluids. The (43.2°F) and a maximum temperature of 36.7°C (98.1°F)
TempTale 4s measured datapoints every 5 minutes for 10 days.
After the exercise, the data were collected and analyzed to de- On average the temperature difference between the inside and
termine how long the temperature was within the 15°C (59°F) outside of the cooling container was 16.6°C (62°F) with a
to 25°C (77°F) parameters prescribed by the DFD. 17.9°C (64.2°F) median (6.6°C SD).

Results Discussion
The two TempTale 4s collected 5,280 data points, consisting of Temperatures inside and outside the storage container were
time and temperature, with 5-minute intervals, and spanning measured for 264 hours. Our results show that, for almost
264 hours (Figure 2). The ambient temperature was within the the entire measured timeframe, the ambient temperature was
controlled temperature for 5.5% (13.8 hours) of the measured outside the parameters of controlled temperature. The tem-
time interval. It was outside the acceptable controlled tem- peratures measured inside the cooling container were within
perature for 94.5% of the time (248.5 hours).The temperature those parameters for almost 70% of the time. Storage tem-
outside of the cooling container was above 25°C (77 °F) for peratures dropped bellow a controlled temperature of 15°C
a total of 15 minutes (0.1%) and under 15°C (59°F) for a (59°F) for one-fifth of the time. This happened almost every
total of 249 hours (94.7%). Outside the cooling container we night just before first light at the end of a 24-hour cycle. The
measured a minimum temperature of –12.5°C (9.5°F) and a temperature was too high for nearly 12% of the time, likely
maximum temperature of 27.3°C (81.1°F). due to a combination of “freshly” rewarmed water bottles and

FIGURE 1 Dometic
CoolFreeze CFX 65
®
Professional cooling container
placed inside the teams BV
206 (cooling container is not
attached to any power source).

Low-Tech Medication Storage in the Arctic | 41