Winter Survival • Field Guide

A Mother's Frightening Night During a Sudden Winter Storm Taught Her One Critical Lesson

When Power Fails and Temperatures Plummet, Having A Backup Heat Source Could Save Your Family’s Life (Especially After Texas Families Faced $16,000+ Energy Bills)

The Night That Changed Everything

When 246 Texans died during the 2021 winter freeze, federal investigators found something disturbing: Texas grid operators had been warned—twice—that exactly this scenario would unfold if they didn’t winterize infrastructure. Both warnings were ignored. The $130 billion cost of upgrades wasn’t ‘economically justified.’ Until ordinary families paid $17,000 electricity bills while their neighbors froze to death…

First the lights flicker. Then they die.

ERCOT—the grid operator, the ones with their hands on the switch—later admits they were four minutes and thirty-seven seconds from complete collapse.

Four minutes from every electron in Texas going dark. Weeks, maybe months to bring it back. So they pull the trigger on rolling blackouts for 4.5 million homes.

The Crisis Unfolds

The 911 lines light up like a Christmas tree. Over a thousand calls flooding Houston dispatch in a single hour—four times what the system was built to handle. Operators are drowning.

Hold times stretch past half an hour. Somewhere in St. Louis, a mother is on hold, forty-five minutes on hold, while her five-year-old is trapped under a tree in the yard.

Emergency vehicles start getting stuck. Fire trucks, ambulances, National Guard vehicles with four-wheel drive and winter tires—doesn’t matter.

Buffalo reports two-thirds of their emergency fleet is immobilized. Snow drifts the size of cars. Dallas EMTs reach a hypothermia call two hours after dispatch. The woman is frozen in her bedroom, still in her chair, waiting for help that took too long.

And the whole time—while people are burning cardboard for warmth, while two elderly people die waiting for an ambulance that’s stuck three blocks away, while a diabetic kid goes into crisis because his insulin pump has no power—energy company executives are calculating their bonuses…

“Eleven billion dollars in windfall profits…”

My Personal Story

And look, I’m not sharing this to make you angry at energy companies or point fingers at who failed us.

I’m sharing this because you need to know what I didn’t know.

My name is Janet Thompson, and I need to tell you about the night I almost lost my daughter in a flash blizzard.

I almost lost her. Not because I was being reckless or stupid. But because nobody ever taught me what actually keeps you alive when the temperature drops and help isn’t coming.

I thought I was prepared. Full tank of gas. Charged phone. I did everything I thought I was supposed to do. It almost wasn’t enough.

What I knew that night versus what I know now? That gap is the difference between my daughter being here with me today or being one of the 246 people who froze to death during the Texas blackouts.

“They didn’t know either. And that’s what pisses me off. This information exists. Emergency responders know it. Survival experts know it. But nobody teaches it to regular parents like you and me until after something terrible happens.”

I learned it the worst way possible—in real time, in freezing cold, with my daughter’s life depending on decisions I had no idea how to make.

I can’t bring back the people who died not knowing. But I can make damn sure you don’t become another statistic because the system never bothered to teach you.

What I’m about to share are hard-won lessons from a camping trip that went catastrophically wrong. I’m sharing them because keeping quiet would make me complicit the next time this happens.

With this information in mind, you’ll be able to protect your loved ones from the blistering cold – and you’ll discover the early warning signs of hypothermia, frostbite… and what to do when a loved one is unconscious in the cold.

It doesn’t matter who you are – what you’re about to discover are life-saving insights that will determine the fate of your family in the next winter storm.

The Reality of Winter Storms

You see, here’s what they call these storms: “once in a generation events.”

Except they keep happening every few years.

Texas 2021. Buffalo 2022. January 2025.

And every single time, the same script plays out: Weather forecasters act surprised. Officials tell you to shelter in place and wait for help. The grid gets overwhelmed. Emergency services get stuck. And you’re on your own with multiple feet of snow piling at your doorstep, schools shut down, and no one coming to save you.

Because here’s what they don’t tell you about the grid: About 50% of U.S. electricity comes from natural gas. And natural gas infrastructure? It freezes when temperatures drop below what’s “expected.” Plants go offline. Not for hours—for weeks.

It happened in 2021. It happened in 2022. It happened again in January 2025.

That’s three ‘once in a generation’ events in four years.

Either they’re lying about the odds, or the generation is twelve months long now.

They know this. They’ve known this since 2011. Federal regulators documented it. Wrote reports. Made recommendations. Energy companies looked at the $130 billion price tag to fix it and said “nah.”

Because when the grid fails, they don’t lose money. You do. They made $11 billion in profits while people froze.

You're On Your Own

So no—I’m not telling you this story so you’ll get mad at energy companies or wait for the government to fix things. They won’t. The incentives are wrong. The system is designed exactly the way it is because failure is profitable for them.

I’m telling you this because when the next storm hits, you’re on your own.

911 will be overwhelmed. Emergency vehicles will be stuck. The grid will fail. Help won’t come or will come too late.

And the only thing standing between your family and hypothermia is what you know and what you have right now.

That’s why I’m sharing what I learned that night with my daughter. Not because I want you angry—though you should be.

But because anger without preparation just leaves you cold, screaming into a phone that no one’s answering.

What I’m about to show you is what I wish someone had shown me before that night.

The Car Nightmare

Now, in a situation like this– time isn’t your friend.

And every winter – turns into a dangerous natural disaster that could threaten your loved one’s life. It could happen to anybody. Your kids. Your parents. Your spouse. Your pets.

They need you most in moments like this.

Hundreds of Americans die getting caught out in the extreme cold due to natural disasters.

When you’re caught out in the cold– it’s a race against the clock, with every minute, feeling like an hour.

And I’d almost lost my daughter on a road trip back home, trapped in a tiny 7-foot metal death box in a blizzard…

“Mommy, Why Isn’t The AC Working, Could You Turn It On Please?”

She asked with a bright, polite smile on her face in the rearview mirror. I could barely hear her because the blizzard was raging outside – it was howling and whistling.

And everywhere you looked – it was just a white. Couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you.

The roads had turned into ice skating rinks, and driving down them would be a death wish on the rocky hills where one mistake would lead to the car tumbling down a sheer cliff face.

The engine coughed twice… then screamed… before I heard a snap in the front.

The car was dead– and all the warning lights were blinking on the dashboard, as if to mock me.

“Well sweetie, the car doesn’t like the cold – and it’s not turning on now. It’s throwing a bit of a… tantrum.”

I told her– pushing the dark thoughts away in my head.

Deep inside, my ‘mom voice’ was starting to go completely wild, fighting against the numbness already creeping into my fingertips as I gripped the useless steering wheel.

My precious daughter was just nine – and she didn’t need to know what was going on. She was too young to understand.

I called emergency services… with the last 7% of phone battery I had left…now dropping to 5%. I gave them every last detail. Emergency contacts, address, what the car looked like.

“Five to eight hours mam, the roads are completely frozen over. We’re clearing up the roads now, and we’ll get to you immediately.”

Now, my daughter – visibly grouchier – as it was starting to get cold, looked at me with her arms crossed.

She stared at me in the rearview mirror…

“When’s the taxi coming?”

I bit my tongue– having to lie to her again, with a sinking feeling in my stomach that comes when a mother knows that a cold, silent danger’s just around the corner… waiting to catch us both when we least expected it.

With all the courage I could muster… I said,

“Soon, sweetie– soon. We’ll be home really soon. And you have to stay awake okay? No sleeping.”

And for hours, we sat there… patiently for help to arrive. Staring at the dashboard… watching the frost creeping into the house, like an cold, unforgiving force – that didn’t care.

First it was the dashboard… soon, the edges of the windows…

It was as if the blizzard was trying to tell me that it was all over.

There was nowhere left to run.

I climbed into the backseat, pulled my daughter close.

My body heat was all we had left now that the engine was dead.

The operator’s words kept echoing: “Three hours of oxygen in a sealed car. Maybe four if we breathed slow.”

It was as if the blizzard was playing some cruel trick on me.

Keep the windows sealed? We’d drift off to sleep, our own breath becoming the killer.

Crack them open? We’d buy just a little more time for rescue to come… with each minute stealing warmth from my daughter’s body.

The blizzard had backed us into a corner.

Now it was making me open the window myself.

As the window peeled just an inch open… the wind speeds had pumped a massive waft of frost filled air into the car… sucking out all the ‘warmth’ that I’d tried to keep in the layers of my clothes– with my daughter in my arms.

There were pins and needles going through my fingers… my feet… then creeping up to my arms, reaching my neck… the both of us began shivering uncontrollably…

The Stages of Hypothermia

Within just a few minutes… my gut instinct knew that this was becoming a medical emergency. I remembered reading about hypothermia once, in some forgotten safety manual.

How it shuts the body down, one stage at a time.

Stage 1: Shock

That’s the shivering, the pins and needles I was feeling now. Your blood vessels tighten up, squeezing and forcing the blood back to the major organs in your body.

At this stage, your core temperature has already dropped from 98.6°F to about 95°F – just a 3.6-degree drop is enough to trigger this survival response.

Your body is trying its best to keep you alive here – by giving your essential organs enough blood to survive, and less important parts out. This is the exact same thing that happens when you jump into a cold plunge at sub zero temps, the pain that you feel comes from the blood rushing back into your body to protect you.

Your fingers and toes can lose up to 30% of their blood flow in just minutes.

Stage 2: Confusion

You lose control of basic motor functions – and both your mind and body start to ‘freeze up’.

Confusion sets in. Studies show that for every degree your core temperature drops below 95°F, your mental processing speed drops by nearly 30%.

You can’t remember who you are – where you are, why you’re doing anything at all. Simple decisions become impossible – and you’re barely able to keep focused. Mount Everest climbers describe this as having a ‘fog’ that blurs everything… burning a million brain cells a second as it progressively takes over the body.

Your mind stumbles around in the dark– struggling to create new memories… and to make sense of the world around them. All they remember are short flashes.

At this stage, blood flow to the brain has decreased by up to 50%, making new memory formation almost impossible.

Stage 3: Surrender

The surrender. Your body stops shivering – not because you’re warming up, but because you’re shutting down.

This is when your body completely fails. And something strange happens here– you feel really warm, and many mountain climbers when experiencing extreme hypothermia – find themselves burrowing into a corner of the snow, and taking off all of their clothes, even though it’s freezing out there.

At this stage, you lose complete control over your mind…

And your worst instincts take over… leading to hallucinations, intense experiences… and unconscious behaviour that usually puts you in more harm.

“Just 3 More Hours…” I kept repeating it like a prayer, forcing my mind to stay sharp even as the cold tried to dull it.

The numbers from that safety manual kept flashing through my head – 30% blood loss to extremities, 50% decreased brain function – but I refused to become just another statistic.

My daughter’s breathing had gotten slower, but I could still feel her heart beating against mine. That rhythm became my anchor, my battle drum.

I started talking – about anything, everything.

Summer memories, funny stories from my time in school, ridiculous jokes.

Each word was a tiny flame of warmth, each laugh a middle finger to the frigid darkness trying to claim us. My body might’ve been freezing, but my will was burning hotter than ever.

Remember that time at the beach?” I asked, pulling her closer. “When that seagull stole your ice cream?”

She managed a weak giggle. Even that small sound was victory.

The medical manuals talk about stages of hypothermia like they’re inevitable. Stage 1: shock. Stage 2: confusion. Stage 3: surrender. But they forgot about Stage 4: A mother’s rage against the dying light.

You want to shut down my blood flow? Try fighting nine years of birthday parties still to plan.

Try to fog my brain? Every lullaby I’ve ever sung is carved into my bones.

Make me surrender? I survived 20 hours of labor – this blizzard is just Tuesday.

The cold was trying to teach me about biology? Fine. Let me teach it about maternal instinct. About how every shiver becomes a war cry, every breath a battle won.

They say hypothermia kills by making you give up.

But they’ve never met a mother with a child to protect. Sure, I was trapped in a frozen metal box, but in my mind? I was standing in front of an inferno, and Death himself would have to go through me to get to my baby.

And then – through that white void of nothingness – a flash of red and blue. Like the universe finally decided to answer a mother’s prayer with emergency lights and diesel engines.

Some say it was luck. Others call it a miracle.

“I call it a mother’s refusal to let the cold write her story’s ending.”

But that cold winter night had left a deep scar on me.

Not just as a mother, but as someone who understood exactly how those temperatures drop from 54°F to -11°F can turn a normal day into a fight for survival.

And with thousands of car deaths, and cold deaths happening all across America – I couldn’t walk away from others turning into another statistic.

Each number had a story that didn’t need to end in the cold. A daughter who should’ve made it home to dinner. A father who just needed one more hour of warmth. A son who had plans for the weekend. The cold doesn’t care about your story – but I do.

Behind every winter statistic is an empty chair at someone’s dinner table. A graduation ceremony missing a proud parent. A birthday party waiting for a guest who never arrived. These aren’t just numbers in a weather report – they’re families torn apart by a force we can actually fight.

You see, what haunts me isn’t just my own close call. It’s knowing that right now, someone else’s daughter is probably asking their mom why the car won’t start.

Someone else’s father is trying to keep calm while watching his gas gauge hit empty in a whiteout. Someone else’s family is about to face the same choice I did – but maybe without the same ending.

The cruel irony? Most of these stories could’ve been different.

The Difference Between Becoming A Statistic In A Winter Blizzard, & Being Able To Make It Home To Your Family, Boils Down To This One Decision…

The decision to arm yourself with the simple survival knowledge that I’ll share with you… for free today, and to take action to prepare for these situations.

That’s why I’m sharing the science behind staying warm with you right now, which has gone into creating this 5-second emergency heat shield…

Flash blizzards steal warmth from you – in two hidden invisible ways.

It’s not just the cold that gets you– when you’re out in a blizzard. It’s the wind. With just a 20mph wind gust, a seemingly manageable 30°F winter morning can have the same hypothermic effect as standing in -15°F still air… meaning you have less than 30 minutes before hypothermia sets in, instead of the hours you thought you had.

It’s like putting a hot cup of chocolate – next to a fan.

Even at room temperatures… it’s going to cool 2-3x faster. That’s exactly what the wind does to your body heat.

What you need isn’t just warmth – you need an outer wind-proof AND water-proof shield that blocks these gusts of wind from getting in.

Second…

That hot cup of chocolate –isn’t going to stay hot for very long, if you put it in a thin metal cup. Just like that car my daughter and I were trapped in – metal doesn’t just fail to keep heat in, it actively steals it from you.

Every minute, that metal was pulling heat from our bodies faster than we could produce it.

What you need is a material that acts like a mirror for heat – bouncing your body’s warmth right back to you instead of letting it escape.

That's Why I've Turned To The Same Technology That NASA Uses To Protect Astronauts In Space– Where Temperatures Can Swing From +250°F To -250°F In Seconds.

The result?

A 5-second emergency protective heat shield that reflects up to 97% of your body heat right back to you. This was NASA’s response to creating a ‘space proof’ satellite – one that could survive not only the intense radiation from the sun 2000 miles above earth in medium orbit…

But also withstand microtears that came from micrometeorites, travelling at 22,000 mph (~15x faster than a handgun bullet)… ripping through the atmosphere. These tiny meteorites rip through any astronaut suit, space station, or satellite that’s in orbit.

NASA’s response – is what we now know as BoPET, known for its rugged quality to withstand wear and tear – creating an airtight seal between you and the elements, AND reflecting every last drop of heat from your body… back to you, so that you stay warm.

This breakthrough innovation has been known to work not just in spacecraft, but also in:

Military aircraft – to keep precision instruments away from the freezing cold in high altitudes
The inner lining of spacesuits. Each astronaut suit had been lined with 12 layers of this super material – which had even kept the fresh air in, when they were on the moon… (It was even radiation resistant too!)
And in the inner lining of firefighter protection suits– when they were running into burning buildings.

With these 12 layers…

Astronauts were protected from the harshest environments and space conditions – insulating them from the elements completely.

Now – in my fight against hypothermia, and my mission to help Americans survive the cold… I’ve contacted researchers & manufacturers who had produced these NASA-grade thermal insulations… and worked together with them to create the perfect heat shield that you can use in these winter conditions…

Hearing my story – they were kind enough to work together with me, to create something that everyday americans could use in any blizzard situation– that would keep the same NASA grade insulation.

Introducing Cryo Guard

It feels like a bulletproof vest against the cold, keeping the wind chills out – and your children warm. Just like a layer of kevlar that stops the cold dead in its tracks… keeping you safe from rapid 65°F temperature drops without any extra bulk to your carry.

Advanced Thermal Protection

Wind-Proof & Water Proof

Cryo Guard is a wind-proof, water proof, and thermally insulating second skin, that you can use to confront any blizzard condition head on.

NASA Grade Insulation

Cryo Guard is a 51" x 83" sheet of NASA Grade insulation – that's large enough to fit 3-4 fully grown adults in a group huddle.

Compact & Portable

It is also small enough, just 3 inches, by 4 inches wide – and can fit in any car glove box, backpack – and 4 Cryo Guards would fit in fist sized cube.

Just like how NASA astronauts had 12 layers of gold plated BoPET in their suits… You get to choose how many layers of Cryo Guard you’d like to put on – to preserve your body’s temperature.

Professional Rescue Protocol

In severe cold rescues, professional rescue teams use a specific survival protocol: They wrap victims in 4-5 layers of Cryo Guard as their critical base layer. This creates a powerful heat-reflection zone around the victim’s core.

They combine this with carefully warmed glucose solution – essentially sugar water at the right temperature. This two-pronged approach is crucial: while the Cryo Guard layers trap and reflect body heat back to the core, the glucose provides instant energy the body can convert to warmth.

Each military-grade CryoGuard retails at $25. It’s what emergency response teams pay for the gold-plated heat retention technology that keeps people alive when everything goes wrong.

How Much Protection Do You Need?

One CryoGuard keeps you alive. Four layers keep you SAFE. And you need that coverage in at least three locations – your home, your car, and your backup spot.

That’s already 12 units for ONE person.

But because you’re on this page – we’ll be able to bring them to you at the best prices possible, when you order in bulk – as a special thank you for choosing to protect your family, and taking responsibility for when flash freezes happen all over America.

Choose Your Protection Plan

Single

12x Cryo Guard

$54.00

$4.50 per piece

Couple

24x Cryo Guard

$72.00

$3 per piece

Family

48x Cryo Guard

$120.00

$2.50 per piece

Free Shipping & No Risk Guarantee

And to thank you for being a part of making America a safer place– we’ll be covering ALL shipping and handling fees, within the US… as part of our initiative to help save Americans from winter blizzards.

Complete Protection With Zero Risk

We stand behind our product with America’s strongest guarantee

We Have A No Questions Asked for a 90 Day Money Back Guarantee Too. Simply send us an email, and we’ll refund every penny of yours.

Every American needs a safe cache of CryoGuard in their home, car, and backup spots– for each one of their family members.

What you have right in front of you… is nothing short of a scientific miracle and breakthrough, and there’s no reason for you to not protect your loved ones.

What you have right here… is hundreds of years of innovation – space travel, and survival knowledge, compressed into a powerful 3 by 4 inch second skin, that can keep you alive in the case of any emergency temperature swings… like the one that’s completely ravaged southern America in January 2025.

The Reality We're Facing

The climate crisis isn’t coming – it’s already here

And since you’re here… let’s cut through the lies in the media for just a second.

The world isn’t just changing – it’s fracturing. We’re watching power grids fail in Texas, California going dark, and weather patterns that make meteorologists look like they’re throwing darts blindfolded.

2022

Texas freeze caught everyone exposed.

2023

Record-breaking winter storms across the Midwest.

2024

Power grid failures we're not even supposed to talk about.

2025

Well, you've seen
the headlines.

Every year, the gaps in the system get bigger. Emergency services stretched thinner. Response times are getting longer. Infrastructure crumbling faster than we can patch it.

The time to act is now, before the next crisis hits

96 units isn’t excessive – it’s baseline protection in a world where ‘once in a generation’ storms are showing up every winter. Where ’emergency response’ might mean hours instead of minutes. Where the difference between tragedy and survival often comes down to what you did before everything went sideways.

You’re not just buying emergency gear. You’re buying time. You’re buying breaths. You’re buying the right to say ‘we’ve got this’ when everyone else is dialing numbers that won’t answer.

The real cost isn’t what you’re paying for the $144 today. The real cost is looking your family in the eye during the next winter catastrophe and explaining why you thought being prepared was too expensive.