Around 70% inside, 50% outside

It's not that they can't handle heat, it's that you wimps down south can't handle cold!! Seriously, they swing 130 degrees in 4 months. Give them a break!

I grew up in SoCal. 105-110 is hot, but whatever. Shade, water, big deal. 40 was crazy cold. Humidity sucks..(insert favorite noun here). Then I moved... and found that -5 is freaking cold, but not much different than +5. personally, I'd rather need a jacket or sweater than be stuck in that tropic humidity crap y'all deal with.

I have no plans. I work in a building with a/c. When I get home, the A/C is set to 82. If that breaks, I have a wading pool out back I can sit in if needed. Or drive 2 blocks with my Kayak and go out onto the Elizabeth River. Worse comes to worst, I head to Virginia beach, 25 miles away.

Been there; done that. I keep a poly fleece jacket in the truck for movie theaters and doctor's offices. Then again I've taken friends on summer camping trips who seem to spend all their time in AC and they suffered. Ironic that people come down to Florida 'for the weather' and then stay inside with the AC cranked so low they could hang meat.

Seems to be a common theme with humanity. The story is that Arizona used to be valued as a destination for allergy sufferers because it had few flowers and low pollen counts. OF course as soon as the people moved there the first thing they do was plant flowers. I'm told that in much of Arizona the pollen count is about what it is in the rest of the country.



I've seen people try to cool off using 'swamp coolers'. These units push air over a water saturated absorbent material. The idea is to force evaporation of the water and drop the temperature. Problem is that if you blow air at 100% humidity over water the water has no place to go and the temperature doesn't drop.

Same with sweat. At 100% humidity sweat doesn't evaporate and you stay wet and hot. Dry heat isn't bad. Wet heat is like living in a plastic bag. In a high humidity situation you lose more heat by radiation and convection than evaporation. The working solution is to get naked so the sweat falls off and body is free to radiate heat. Staying in the shade to avoid direct heat and keeping the air moving so you to shed heat faster.

The other thing people need to learn is to slow down. Try to do too much too fast and you overheat and fall out. A slow, measured pace gets more done in the long run.

Working construction over 100F and 100% humidity we went to a 20/20/20 system. Twenty minutes working heavy physical labor, twenty resting in the shade, twenty minutes light work. Even then during the 1200 to 1400 time period we pretty much eliminated the heavy physical labor part if it was in the sun.

Fold-up 12' by 12' shade pavilions are very handy to keep the sun at bay. If you have a choice get one in a light color with vent in the peak of the roof. Place a large jug of ice water and a industrial size fan under it and you have a workable cooling station. Keep one of these set up close to all the work locations and work in shifts and you can get a lot done without anyone falling out.

I've seen too many guys, it is almost always guys, who try to 'tough it out' get laid low by heat. If you think setting up and maintaining a cooling station is expensive try paying for a couple of serious cases of genuine heat stroke.

Myth: You can send someone into shock if you cool them off too fast. This is false. Having ice dumped on you is not comfortable in normal conditions but most people barely feel it if they are dangerously overheated.

If someone is suffering heat stroke don't hesitate to cool them off as fast as possible because their brain is literally cooking. Packing the groin, neck and armpits in ice is the best way to cool them. If they get to the point they need it they are usually only semi-conscious and won't feel it much. Once iced down transport them with the ice in place. Generally there is no need to worry about frostbite or hypothermia if transport can be accomplished in ten or fifteen minutes.

I used to work in Las Vegas, outdoors, with poor or no a/c, and practically DIED every summer. Never got used to it in six years and was glad to see that place in my rear-view mirror.

My work now is driving. I have good a/c, always carry a crate of bottled water, and while waiting, I can park in the shade. If it's really hot, I take a thin towel (like a dishtowel) and soak it, wring it, and hang it around my neck, occas. wiping my arms with it. I have access to cold water at every depot or train yard.

When I'm home, if it's cool enough, I do some work early and late. I don't do much of anything in the heat of the day but rewet my towel and drink and cruise the internet or read. I don't have a/c, and not much air pollution. Hot spells don't really last too long here (humidity 40-50%), and when it is hot, I just don't get much done around the house.

In the past, when I've been traveling with my dog, I kept 'dog towels' handy. She could lay on a wet towel, and if it was very bad with little shade, I would cover the dog with a wet towel, too, and the evaporation would cool her (heaviness of panting being the gauge).

I run the sprinklers in the areas of grass that will be shady during the heat of the day for the dogs and chickens to lie in. The chickens pant and really suffer in the heat. They like to wade through very shallow water (like 1/2" or less), so I will let the hose run very slowly on a shady, hard-packed spot. I refill the water bowls every evening and check them every morning, and they all have water bowls in several places.

I also have the saucers from plant pots filled with water for the wild birds. It is said that if you keep water available in summer, birds and animals won't go after your garden crops (esp fruit) as much. I don't know if it's true, but I do it anyway.

Sue

The Paramedics I take my MRT class from always advise against this.

Just my 2c.

MarkO is correct.

"Treatment of hyperthermia consisting of measures which will rapidly lower core body temperature. However, care must be taken to avoid causing vasoconstriction or shivering. Vasoconstriction will impede heat loss and shivering will create heat."
http://www.rnceus.com/hypo/hypertreat.html

When I worked for a vet in SoCal, we got a couple cases of dogs left in hot cars every summer. While we hosed them down with cool tap water and placed cold packs around their head in their armpits and groin area, my vet warned us that they couldn't be packed in ice or immersed in very cold water. The highest rectal temp I every saw was 112F in a Springer Spaniel. Yes, he died.

Sue

~9:45 PM and a balmy 94° here (north-end of Phoenix). Moved here from Santa Barbara (where heat not an issue) when retired eight years.

Despite low humidity, 110°+ days are still hot, by anyone's standards. Quickly learned, outdoor activities best done early A.M.

We manage to stay comfortable thanks to:

- Installed pool immediately after bought home.
- 'Plantation shutters' on all windows and atrium doors. Big help.
- South- and west-facing windows are manufacturer-tinted.
- R-50 ceiling insulation.
- Home divided into two zones, each with own A/C and furnace, set in sync with time-of-day and usage. Normally use A/C mid-May through August.
- Ceiling fans in all rooms and two on rear covered-patio.
- Installed misting system on rear covered-patio.
- When out and about with car(s), park facing sun, use foil-faced windshield sunshades.
- Both cars carry small insulated coolers. Our habit: toss couple of bottled waters in if driving beyond immediate area.
- Uniform du jour: shorts, sandals, t-shirt, baseball cap (and good sunglasses).
- During Spring/Summer, 80% of cooking done on small outdoor BBQ grill (connected to natural gas).

That's what was taught in the past, and is still sometimes taught today in EMS education. But it is wrong.

The gold standard for treating hyperthermia is full immersion in an icewater bath. This is what the top athletic trainers do, both at the world class and local high school levels.

The only valid exceptions are people who are very aged or who have seriously pathological cardiac dysrhythmia problems. In just about everyone else, rapid cooling via water at or just above freezing is the gold standard.

Since someone developing heat stroke will almost certainly have altered mental status, care must be taken to keep their airway clear during the water immersion.

Look to some of the more recent research for the details. Don't rely on stuff written 5-10 years ago.

I wonder if you guys are confusing heat with cold?

I've heard the "don't warm too fast" theory with hypothermic patients, the idea being if you warm them externally, you open the vaso-constricted vessels and then they go into shock, which in a hypothermic state is just making things worse.

Either way, the shivering aspect is something to consider. You just have to cool them faster - ice water enema, anyone?

Sorry it took me so long, but I found the material I wanted to link in my earlier post.

Dr. Doug Casa, PhD, is considered one of the most up-to-date experts on exertional heat stroke. Here is a video of Dr. Casa at a seminar. There are more videos with Dr. Casa on YouTube to peruse too.

The Korey Stringer Institute is an extension of the University of Connecticut and is dedicated to research and prevention of heat injuries. Dr. Casa is affiliated with the KSI. Check their site for tons of info.

Specifically from this page at the KSI:

"Myth: 'Peripheral Vasoconstriction (PVC) delays cooling'

Fact: While PVC may occur during cold water immersion (CWI,) it is greatly overshadowed by the great conductive and convective thermal transfer which cools the body rapidly. Furthermore, PVC certainly occurs when a normothermic individual is placed in a cold water bath. Although PVC may minutely increase core body temperature initially, even in a EHS victim, a rapid decrease in body temperature will immediately follow.

Myth: 'Shivering delays cooling'

Fact: Similar to PVC (peripheral vasoconstriction), shivering will certainly occur when a normothermic individual is placed in a cold water bath. However, this is seldom the case with a hyperthermic individual. Research shows that powerful rapid cooling will still occur in hyperthermic individuals with few occurrences of a shivering response."

Lastly, remember this nugget: "today's heat illness started with yesterday's training". Heat injury is a cumulative thing; you are not out of the woods after the initial cooling. Heat injury has been shown to incite an inflammatory response in the body that takes time to recover from. If you push yourself day after day in the heat, you are risking heat injury more than you think, especially if you do not sleep in cool conditions at night.