Simple reconstruction nearly anyone can do.

[Investigator]

Do not try this at home!  LC


Toast a piece of bread in a traditional style toaster.  Hold your dry hand a few inches over it, enough to warm your hand but of course you don't want to burn it.  Now do it again, but your hand is wet but not dirpping wet.  After ten seconds or whatever it takes to warm it up but not dry it, take your hand away from the top of the toaster and see the difference.  If you can get your hand outside quickly in cold, windy conditions quickly, that would presumably an even better idea.  You can also wet a glove or gloves that would be most similar to the kind of clothing the 7 less well-dressed members of the group were wearing, and again, hold it over the toaster until you warm up, then take it away and compare how that feels to when you did it with a dry hand (again, putting the hand outside in cold/windy conditions would be better).  I won't say anything more to avoid introducing bias.

[Ziljoe]

Be prepared to be sued for burns by half the globe  investigator.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Disclaimer added to the OP

[Investigator]

I did say to hold one's hand high enough so that it doesn't get burned!  ROTFLOL.

Anyway, the idea is to try and figure out exactly what the DPI was dealing with (at least thet 7 who had less clothing).  You do a lot of work out in the cold and wind, then stand near an apparently robust camp fire for between an hour or two, which may or may not keep you alive, but if you are still alive, you are sweated up but you now have hardly any protection against the cold or wind (the cold may have been enough under those conditions).  If you are dry, you find a place that is protected from the wind and huddle together for the night (I think this will raise the odds of survival substantially).  The last key mistake they made may have been to put so much faith in the camp fire, which apparently was difficult to get started or maintain, and that may not have mattered anyway, due to the lack of sufficient clothing among at least 7 of them.