Last year was the warmest still recorded in the world, and in the county of Santa Clara, 38 deaths were determined to be linked to heat, after several waves of heat brought daily temperatures to San Jose above 100 ° in July, and again in October.
Just on July 6, three deaths were attributed to extreme heat in the county. Overall, the number of deaths compared to last year’s heat is a massive increase compared to the 13 total thermal deaths reported in the county in the previous six years, from 2018 to 2023.
Among these warmth deaths in 2024, 27 were in San Jose, 3 at Mountain View, 2 in Milpitas, and each in Gilroy, Los Altos, Morgan Hill, Palo Alto, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, according to data from the medical examination office of the County of Santa Clara. Last year, there were 2 heat deaths in the county of Alameda.
The County of San Mateo did not identify any thermal death in 2024, or in previous years, but reported 3 warmth deaths in 2017, when a heat wave in September killed more than a dozen people in the region.
“In the past two years, we have seen the most extreme sleeves ever recorded,” said Dr. Grant Lipman, emergency doctor at Santa Clara Valley Healthcare. “And with these heat events, we certainly see a lot of heat disease in the emergency room.”
Lipman, who has done research on heat disease, says that certain groups are more at risk: badly -shaped people, those who work outside, very old and very young.
Lipman said his research has shown that one of the best ways to cool someone is cold water immersion. “We put them in a body bag, we fill it with ice,” said Lipman, describing the method he used. “In about 10 minutes, we lower their temperature, we dry them, Zonspons the bag and the tokens,” he said.
Now, while spring showers and April flowers turn to warmer and longer days around the bay, Lipman said that people should remember drinking water when they are thirsty, to reconstruct the electrolytes with salty snacks and get out of the sun if they feel over -heated.
“The number one diagnostic alert signal is if someone is confused,” said Lipman to know when requesting medical care.
When people cannot or do not follow these precautions, their heat disease can become fatal, and it is an increasing concern because these extreme heat events become more common due to climate change.
On July 3 of last year, when temperatures exceeded 100 degrees in San Jose, California’s insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, published an analysis of the hidden costs of extreme heat in the state. The report revealed that between the seven extreme heat events they have investigated, it cost about $ 7.7 billion in government and industry. “Extreme heat is a silent and silent disaster that threatens our health, our economy and our lifestyle in California,” said Lara when the report is published.
The medical examiner’s office has announced that they were investigating 19 deaths as perhaps heat linked in July, but it can take weeks or months for death to death. In the end, they determined that 21 deaths in the county in July were linked to heat. “The Legalist’s office assesses a variety of factors when it determines whether death is caused by heat,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.
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