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What a Heat Wave Does to Your Body | The New Yorker

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On a sweltering day in June, 2019, David Kim, a third-year medical resident, was working in a Bay Area emergency department when he received a dispatch. The temperature outside was ninety-nine degrees—nearly unprecedented for Northern California—and a woman in her eighties had just been found lying on the ground in a parking lot. Her body temperature was a hundred and four degrees. Paramedics had lifted her off the pavement and applied cold packs to her skin, and she’d regained consciousness. But she was unable to tell them how she had fallen, or even who she was. She was now in an ambulance headed for Kim’s hospital. In cases of heatstroke, the fastest way to lower a person’s body temperature is to plunge them into cold water. Other interventions—cold towels, misting fans—are far less powerful. But Kim’s emergency department didn’t have a bathtub, and they needed to improvise. In a supply closet, Kim found some gray plastic buckets. He ran with them to the cafeteria for ice and water.

Save this story Save this story On a sweltering day in June, 2019, David Kim, a third-year medical resident, was working in a Bay Area emergency department when he received a dispatch. The temperature outside was ninety-nine degrees—nearly unprecedented for Northern California—and a woman in her eighties had just been found lying on the ground in a parking lot. Her body temperature was a hundred and four degrees. Paramedics had lifted her off the pavement and applied cold packs to her skin, and she’d regained consciousness. But she was unable to tell them how she had fallen, or even who she wa

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