In the heat, the temperature in the car can rise as high as a sauna. Heat stroke is a life-threatening condition, especially for a small child.
A parked car heats up in the heat to a hot loaf in a short time. The temperature inside the car can get as hot as in a sauna.
Made a few years ago of American Studies the dashboard of a car parked in the sun can heat up to 71 degrees and the seats to 50 degrees in an hour.
The experimental setting of the study was made in the desert state of Arizona in the city of Tempe, where the outside temperatures during the experiment were 29–37 degrees, depending on the time of day.
The temperature of the cars varied depending on the size of the car and where they were parked. However, the average indoor temperature rose to 40–47 degrees in an hour.
“Small children are the most sensitive to the effects of heat,” says the chief physician Juha Peltonen From the hospital district of Varsinais-Suomi.
Heatstroke is a life-threatening condition in which the body temperature rises to more than 39 degrees due to external heat. In Finland, the most common reason for this is sauna use.
“In a hot car, especially small children’s body temperature can quickly rise to a life-threatening high. And when we go over forty-one degrees, the mortality rate is already very, very high,” says Peltonen.
The elderly and patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases are also at risk. According to Peltonen, too little fluid intake, alcohol use and some medications, such as diuretics, also expose the heat to harm.
Small children, especially children under the age of two, are at the greatest risk because they do not know how to react to heat. A lap child can’t open the car door and get out of the car if it’s terribly hot in there.
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A patient suffering from heat stroke is often confused, even unconscious.
Even if an older person’s ability to function has decreased or the person has, for example, a memory disorder, they may not be able to function properly.
In addition, according to Peltonen, a child’s thermoregulation is disturbed more sensitively than an adult’s.
“A child also loses fluid more sensitively than an adult when the temperature rises,” says Peltonen.
In a hot car, the temperature rises so quickly that dehydration does not have time to develop, but a life-threatening situation arises from the rise in body temperature. Dehydration can be a problem even in lower heat if you have to stay there for a long time.
Heat stroke initial symptoms are nausea and weakness, possibly diarrhea. A patient suffering from heat stroke is often confused, even unconscious.
“Pulse and breathing are fast, blood pressure is low. Skin is dry. Stopping sweating in the heat is a sign of a serious heat balance disorder,” says Peltonen.
According to him, in a life-threatening situation, multi-organ damage develops: the walls of the intestines and blood vessels begin to leak, muscle cells break, kidney and liver function deteriorates. In heat stroke, the patient most often dies of a heart attack or the multi-organ damage in question.
The most important first aid for heat stroke is cooling the body quickly by bathing in water, ventilation or cold packs. Cooling is started immediately on the spot and the patient is moved to a cooler place as soon as possible.
“In severe, life-threatening heat stroke, the patient is always treated in a hospital, often in the intensive care unit,” says Peltonen.
Read more: Never leave a child or a dog in a hot car – during a one-hour trip to the store, the inside of the car gets so hot that the dashboard can even get burns
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