Near Death Experience.

A 30 year old man I work with, who is in excellent physical condition and used to working outside, nearly died last weekend. It was mid morning and the temp was in the mid to high 90s (got to 104 in the afternoon) when he began having excruciating pain in his lower back. He got out of his pickup to stretch his back and his stomach began cramping and causing him to vomit. Then he began to have muscle cramps in his legs and arms as well.

His assistant tried to get him to go to the hospital but he went home instead and took a cold shower and drank more water. He began to feel even worse and his lower back was hurting so much he finally went to the hospital. His kidneys were shutting down and he was near congestive heart failure. All the liquid he had taken in and had not urinated once. His vital signs were horrible and his Doctor told him it was a miracle he was not in a coma already. He spent 3 days in the hospital and has been off work for over a week. We almost lost a good man with a great family.

My friends, don't be a statistic this summer. Get help if you THINK you may be having heat stroke/heat exhaustion. Read up on it and pay attention to yourself and your friends and loved ones. You could save a life.

Bob,
I'm so used to seeing jokes in this topic, I started looking for the punch line. Didn't take long to see that there wouldn't be a punch line.

Thanks for posting. This is important info for all of us.

Tater

I too was waiting for a punch line.

Bob, thanks for the reminder to pay attention to ourselves in this heat....

Thanks for sharing.

This would be the summer for heat stroke stats to increase. It's been bad in most of the country.

TC

When we are teaching FF at fire college in the hot weather we have a saying "If your not peeing your not drinking enough water" . Jim

I'm in and out of the heat at work, Years ago I came close to letting it catch me off guard. Running heavy equipment all day in blistering heat with a open cab, but it did have a roof on the roll cage. Felt fine until I parked the tractor and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Luckily a guy was there that got me cooled off and I was fine, but man I couldn't imagine slipping past that point of no return like your friend. I know it had to be right painful and scary as heck

My son and I were severly scolded by a National Park ranger while in Canyonlands last month...we were on a two mile rim trail hike and only had a bottle of water between us...We hike deserts all the time and feel we have a good idea of our limits...what we should have done is planned for others needing water...
Why I didnt have my camel pack on I still dont know?

We took the lecture and on we went...about 500 yards up the trail we met a group of people of indian origin (I think) the boys had black headdress's on... one was one the ground and not moving... I ran the mile back to the ranger and informed him... as he was radioing for help he said he gave them the same speach as me....

He looked PO'd

BTW I'm glad your co worker is ok!

So are we, thanks.

I beleive the standard is one quart of water per hour when active outdoors in hot weather. Your urine color should be about the same as weak lemonade. If it's dark you need more fluids.