First responders across South Florida are directly witnessing the heat wave’s toll on human health. As temperatures soar, so do the number of dispatches for heat-related emergency calls.
In July 2022, Palm Beach County Fire Rescue reported 35 heat-related emergency calls. This July, that number more than doubled to 73 calls.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue is urging people to take the National Weather Service’s heat advisories and warnings seriously as South Florida wades through “a prolonged heat emergency.”
“We were expecting this year to be higher, but we didn’t know it was going to be this high,” said Public Information Officer Tara Cardoso of Palm Beach County Fire Rescue.
And Palm Beach is no anomaly. Broward County Sheriff Fire Rescue recorded a similar trend, with 13 dispatched calls in July 2022, which grew to 21 this last July.
But these numbers are likely much higher.
“If I had an estimate, I’d say the real number is two or three times that,” said Battalion Chief Michael Kane of Broward County Sheriff Fire Rescue. “Many calls come in as unknown medical emergencies, so there could be a great number of calls that aren’t being captured as heat-related.”
Considering about 80% of BSO Fire Rescue’s calls are for medical reasons, a call for cardiac arrest due to heat-induced dehydration might not be classified as heat-related, rather recorded as a “cardiac-arrest event.”
Another example is if someone drives a car without air conditioning, is overcome by heat, and crashes; that incident would be captured as a vehicle accident, not a heat-related emergency, Kane said.
Other heat-induced illnesses that might fly under the radar are cardiovascular and respiratory complications, renal failure, electrolyte imbalance, kidney stones, negative impacts on fetal health and preterm birth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I doubt any agency would really be able to give a definitive answer. Everything would be an estimate,” Kane said.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue tried to account for the nuanced data by retroactively reclassifying ordinary medical calls if heat exposure was later uncovered as a direct cause.
For example, a call might originally be recorded as dizziness, but when the paramedics on scene learn the patient was working on a roof all day, they then might recategorize it as heat-related.
“The initial presenting problems of patients can be a lot of different things,” said Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Captain Tom Reyes, who helped compile the data. “But the 73 calls last July were a mix of calls originally dispatched as heat-related emergencies or later identified as heat-related when our rescue teams arrived.”
The same parameters apply for the 35 recorded in July 2022.
For both Palm Beach and Broward counties, the two most common heat-related medical emergencies are heat exhaustion and heat stroke, which are similar but differ in severity.
Heat exhaustion results from the body’s loss of water and salts due to heavy sweating, causing dehydration, pale, cool skin, weakness, dizziness, headaches, nausea, vomiting, muscle cramps, decreased urine and fainting.
Much more life-threatening is heat stroke. When sweating stops and the skin turns hot, red and dry, it means the body is no longer regulating its internal temperature. This can lead to unconsciousness, permanent brain and organ damage or death. In this stage, it’s important to seek shade or air conditioning, remove restrictive clothing and apply cool wet cloths to the neck, armpits and groin.
Unlike county fire and rescue departments, individual South Florida cities haven’t noted much change when comparing this summer to last.
“We haven’t really compared it to last year’s numbers because we haven’t seen an astronomical rise, however we are watching it,” said Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Garrett Pingol. “We would have only had one heat emergency last year in the same time period. Now we’ve had four.”
Last year between June 26 and Aug. 1, Delray Beach Fire Rescue reported only six “heat/cold exposure” calls, compared to nine this year, but that number might not be representative of the real total. That doesn’t include calls for sickness, like for vomiting and fainting that might have resulted from heat exposure, said Delray Beach Fire Rescue Public Information Officer Dani Moschella.
Besides the slim trend in the data, the department hasn’t noticed a drastic change.
“All of our EMS captains said that they don’t feel like they’re going to an increased number of heat-related calls,” Moshella said.
But all the departments, big and small, agree on the importance to hydrate, seek shade during the hottest parts of the day and watch your body’s signs for heat exhaustion and heat stroke. This is especially true for vulnerable populations like people with chronic health conditions, expectant mothers, young children and older adults.