I easily remember laughing at Wile E. Coyote trying to catch the Road Runner while watching Saturday morning cartoons as a child. I can still see Coyote walking slowly through the sweltering desert, sun high in the sky, sweating, tongue hanging out, about to collapse from heat, hunger, and thirst. Then, BEEP! BEEP! The Road Runner would fly past, and the chase was on with a perfectly revived Coyote.
If only fixing heat stroke were that quick and easy.
As a primary care physician who treats patients with heat-related illnesses, I know that heat stroke is certainly no laughing matter. Each summer, a heat wave (or, like, 17) rolls over the United States, precipitating a rash of death and hospitalizations related to what is, in doctor-speak, “severe non-exertional hyperthermia.”…