Teener dies due to ‘heat stroke’
Several days before his high school graduation, a 16-year old student would not be there to witness it.
This, as Van Ricrey Gallardo of Brgy. Tuburan, Zarraga, Iloilo succumbed to heat stroke.
Before the attack, Gallardo attended a fiesta at Brgy. Bilidan, New Lucena town.
Under the searing heat of the sun, Gallardo and some friends played basketball.
After two games, he called it quits.
Gallardo immediately took several gulps of ice cold water.
“Kay tama kainit, ginhapo siya guro, nag-inom siya tubig. Dason, gulpi lang,” the victim’s grandfather narrated.
Gallardo was immediately rushed New Lucena Polytechnic College and Hospital but did not survive.
The hospital temporarily withheld the official findings on the victim’s cause of death pending the family’s explicit approval.
But Gallardo’s grandfather opined that an illness associated with cardiac arrest could have claimed his grandson’s life.
Meanwhile, according to www.medicinenet.com, heat stroke is a form of hyperthermia, an abnormally elevated body temperature with accompanying physical and neurological symptoms. Unlike heat cramps and heat exhaustion, two forms of hyperthermia that are less severe, heat stroke is a true medical emergency that can be fatal if not properly and promptly treated.
Those most susceptible to heart strokes includeinfants, the elderly (often with associated heart diseases, lung diseases, kidney diseases, or who are taking medications that make them vulnerable to heat strokes), athletes, and outdoor workers physically exerting themselves under the sun.
Symptoms of heat stroke can sometimes mimic those of heart attack or other conditions. Sometimes a person experiences symptoms of heat exhaustion before progressing to heat strokes.
Symptoms of heat exhaustion include nausea, vomiting, fatigue, weakness, headache, muscle cramps and aches, and dizziness.
However, some individuals can develop symptoms of heat stroke suddenly and rapidly without warning.
Different people may have different symptoms and signs of heat stroke. But common symptoms and signs of heat stroke include high body temperature, the absence of sweating, with hot red or flushed dry skin, rapid pulse, difficulty breathing, strange behaviour, hallucinations, confusion, agitation, disorientation, seizure, and coma.
