HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Heat related illnesses are scary, especially if parents leave their children in the car unattended.
We spoke to Trent Bennett, the assistant fire marshal with the City of Huntsville, about these dangers.
“The main thing we want people to remember is to always be aware of your surroundings because when we have heat related incidents with kids, it’s because they’re leaving kids inside of their cars because they’re forgetting about them.”
Bennett says this time of the year is very dangerous.
“This is around the time where you're probably going to have a lot of deaths if people aren’t paying attention because the heat index is getting super high at this time and the temperatures are high…we are getting close to triple digits almost on a weekly basis.”
So, what does it look like if an individual or child is showing signs of heat-related illness?
Bennett shares it looks like, “red skin, sweating, they may be dehydrated, they might not even be coherent and they might not even know what’s going on.”
He highly encourages people to make sure their kids and passengers are out of the vehicle when they lock their doors. But what should you do if someone is showing signs of dehydration?
“If you suspect that someone is having a heat related emergency, first thing you want to do is go ahead and call 911 but also try to get them into a cool area and try to cool the body down…give them some water, a cool towel, just get the body temperature down.”