EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) – Doctors at Ascension St. Vincent say the emergency room has been busy as the heat continues, with patients arriving with fatigue, weakness, chest pain, and muscle cramping.
“We’ve been seeing a lot of people coming in with fatigue and weakness and feeling dehydrated,” said Dr. Kailyn Kahre, Ascension St. Vincent EMS Medical Director. “We’ve had several people in here with chest pain, muscle cramping, those kinds of things because they’ve been out in the heat way too long and they’ve gotten dehydrated.”
Who is most at risk
Doctors say the most vulnerable populations are the very young and the very old. Babies and young children cannot regulate their body temperature well, while elderly patients often have heart or lung conditions that make the heat more dangerous.
“Really young kids, they can’t regulate their body temperature as well, like little babies — so keep them inside out of the elements. And then you have your elderly population too,” Kahre said. “They have less ability to regulate their temperature and then they also have other comorbidities — they have heart conditions, they have lung conditions.”…