Burns From Scorching-Hot Sidewalks and Roads Are Rising, and Can Be Fatal
Burns From Scorching-Hot Sidewalks and Roads Are Rising, and Can Be Fatal
Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:
As climate change pushes summer temperatures ever higher and for longer stretches, and with more Americans moving into rapidly expanding cities in the Southwest, more people are suffering serious burns from contact with hot outdoor surfaces. For some, the burns are so extensive that they prove fatal, according to burn experts.
In 2022, the Arizona Burn Center at Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, the largest burn center in the Southwest, admitted 85 patients for contact burns over the summer. Last year, as Phoenix sweltered through 31 straight days of temperatures above 110 degrees, that number climbed to 136 patients, 14 of whom died. This year, the center has already treated 50 patients, and four of them died.
“The people that are dying from these types of burns are not people who just end up with some blistering on their feet,” said Clifford C. Sheckter, surgeon and a burn prevention researcher at Stanford University.
“Your body just literally sits there and cooks,” Dr. Sheckter added. “When somebody finally finds you, you’re already in multisystem organ failure.”
Syed Saquib, medical director of the burn care center at University Medical Center, said before he moved to Las Vegas from Jacksonville, Fla., eight years ago, he had never known about the problem. Now, his center admits one or two such patients daily in the summer.
“I think to myself, ‘These patients are going to require a lot more work and a lot more extensive care than the other types of burn injuries,’” said Dr. Saquib, whose hospital has also seen admissions rise in recent years. Last Thursday, about half of the 31 patients hospitalized with burns had suffered pavement burns.