Doctor warns New England heat wave could turn deadly: Know the signs of heat stroke

First day of July and the heat is on but the heat wave New England is experiencing is definitely cause for concern if you're not careful out there. Joining me now is Dr. Regan Bergmark, a surgeon at Mass General Brigham. Doctor, thank you for being here. We appreciate it. And I first want to talk to you about heat safety first. I think we always touch on this topic. Right. But I think it's really easy for people to underestimate the dangers of it. Would you agree? Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Nicole, to talk about this heat wave we have right now. Heat is definitely dangerous and we need to take it seriously. Yeah. So what are some of the signs that we should all be looking out for? I mean, besides obviously, you know, some of the most obvious ones, let's dive into things that people should be looking out for. So when you get hot, obviously you start to sweat in this humidity. It's hard for that to actually help so much because the humidity makes it hard for the sweat to evaporate. Getting fatigued or weak, dizzy, headaches, nausea, muscle cramps. Those are all signs that you're entering the danger zone. And then there are signs of heat stroke, which is a medical emergency. That would be things like confusion, changing the way you're thinking, fainting, you know, passing out, really having actually your body temperature go up, having your heart rate go up. So if you have those signs, things like confusion or passing out, you need to call 9-1-1. I'm also kind of curious, too, I mean, if you're outside and maybe you think you're a little invincible, especially kids out there who probably don't want to listen to their parents and stay hydrated and out of the sun and take breaks, how quickly, I guess it depends on each situation, but is it easy for people to get back to the base level, I guess, is what I'm trying to figure out. Well, if people have more medical issues, it can take longer to get back to back to normal. So I think you want all those symptoms to go away. And definitely, as you said, taking breaks, staying hydrated, staying in the shade and then exertion, also like a lot of exercise or people who are working outside that tends to push people a little bit more into the danger zone. So pay attention to your body. Good idea there. OK, so in terms of medical visits, have you guys seen a lot of people coming into the hospital ER over the past few days? It's been really toasty out there over the past few days. Yeah, in general, we know there are more emergency departments, emergency department visits during heat waves, and we obviously want to keep people healthy and keep them out of the hospital. I think we're worried that that's really going to take up in the coming days just with these really high temperatures. I'd say so. It's hard to avoid. So from your experience in the medical field, I mean, you I'm sure you've seen a shift in concern over the heat over the past few years as we continue to see an increase in temperatures, right? Absolutely. So we're seeing with climate change, more extreme weather events in general, including more heat waves, and the heat waves are happening more often and they're also worse. Right. So we're seeing these really high temperatures and the nighttime temperatures also are up, which makes it hard to sort of recover and for the body to to recover. OK, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No. So we talk a lot about mitigation. You know, what are your strategies to stay safe, knowing where there's air conditioning, keeping the temperature down? And then also obviously addressing the root causes of these temperature climbs. OK, and also, I mean, the heat brings on some air quality concerns. Our meteorologist, Vicky Graff, was talking about the heat, the air quality concerns. It's going to impact a lot of people out there. Even in our newsroom, people have been sneezing with those allergies. Right. It feels like the allergies are worse right now. How badly does the heat impact air quality? And to you, do you do you think the allergies are pretty bad right now? What's going on? Yeah, so I'm a sinus specialist, so I see a lot of people with allergies and air quality issues. One of the challenges with the rising temperatures and these heat waves is that there are also more wildfires. So that also causes air pollution to occur. And then with just more heat in general, we're seeing these plants creep north that create a lot of pollen. So every year we're seeing the pollen numbers creep up. So that's another concern for everybody with allergies. OK, awesome. Yeah. I wanted to get your perspective on it because I know that you specialize in sinuses. So I'm sure that you hear a lot of people sneezing and complaining about the heat and the air quality. So I appreciate your perspective. Dr. Regan Bergmark, thank you very much. And stay cool out there as well. Thanks, Nicole. All right.