Zhang Yang

nicolezyyy@163.com

THE city’s prehospital care center received 58 reports of residents suffering from heatstroke between Saturday and Monday as the city was hit by a relentless heat wave, according to a press release from the center.

The city issued an orange warning for high temperatures Sunday, while 30 residents suffering from heatstroke called the center for emergency treatment that day. Among them, one resident was visiting Dameisha park, one was hiking along the Dapeng coastline and two others were working out in gyms when they developed symptoms of heatstroke.

Zhao Wei, director of the center’s training department, said that people would show slight symptoms of heatstroke, such as sweating, a throbbing headache, light-headedness, muscle weakness, nausea and vomiting, if their core body temperature rose above 38 degrees Celsius.

It usually takes two hours for slight heatstroke to develop into severe heatstroke. The major symptom of severe heatstroke is a core body temperature of above 40 degrees Celsius, which could cause irreversible damage to a human’s brain and lead to an 80-percent chance of death.

Zhao said some patients with severe heatstroke end up in a vegetative state after they are treated.

Zhao said that residents should avoid being exposed to sunlight and high temperatures to prevent sunstroke. The first-aid treatment for slight heatstroke patients includes cooling methods to bring down their body temperature, such as fanning air over the patients, wetting their skin with water or ice packs and giving them slightly salty water every 10 minutes.

If the condition of a patient doesn’t improve after two hours and the body temperature is still above 38 degrees Celsius, they should be brought to a hospital immediately, Zhao said.