Utah's heat spurs warnings

Although folks along the Wasatch Front got a brief respite from triple-digit temperatures, it's getting hotter again, prompting health officials to urge precautions to avoid heat-related illness.

Most of the state hovers at or above 100 degrees, which can spark severe, even deadly illness.

Don't leave your children or pets in hot cars. Don't over-exert in high temperatures. And check on your elderly friends and neighbors, who are among the most vulnerable when temperatures climb, they say.

Most Wasatch Front hospitals haven't seen a great increase in people seeking treatment for heat-related woes, including dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke, although they always treat some during summer. At St. George's Dixie Regional Medical Center, though, it's a different story. Dixie has hospitalized several people who showed up in the emergency room confused and with high temperatures, says Dr. Brett Christiansen, director of the emergency department there. They've also already treated at least a handful of firefighters for heat exhaustion.

Most of the time, the care team can give intravenous fluids and medicine for nausea and after a while the patient can go home, he says. The ones that end up in the intensive care unit are typically elderly people whose internal thermostats don't work well in high temperatures. Sometimes they die.

Terri Draper, spokeswoman for Dixie, said about a dozen elderly residents showed up there during the power outage earlier this week, seeking someplace cool to wait it out. "They knew we'd have emergency power at least and it would be cooler."

Utah Department of Health records from 2001-05 (the last year available) show 447 emergency room visits related to heat, says Kevin Condra, a spokesman for the Violence and Injury Prevention Program. Sixty-five percent were males and the highest age groups were 20-24 and 24-34. Conversely, 52 percent of those ill enough to be hospitalized — 27 of them — were over age 65. Several deaths were also attributed to heat during that time span.

Just this month, a Florida man died just outside Utah when his car broke down in the desert. And a body was found in the trunk of a car in St. George, the man died after he apparently was trapped in the trunk, presumably when the wind blew it closed.

Those most at risk are the elderly, the very young (neither have internal thermostats that work really well) and normally healthy younger people who have simply overexerted in the heat, including those working outdoors, like construction workers.