EMTs Get a New Way to Treat Heat Victims: Body-Sized Ice Cocoons
In overheated Phoenix, firefighters are carrying giant plastic, ice-filled bags to quickly cool people, a technique pioneered in the military and at sporting events.
Sign up for Your Places: Extreme Weather. Get notified about extreme weather before it happens with custom alerts for places in the U.S. you choose.
As America comes to grips with hotter summer temperatures that already are seizing the nation’s Southwest, emergency medical responders in some areas are carrying new gear to treat heat victims: giant plastic bags to immerse people in ice water.
The tactic involves placing patients suffering from heat-related illnesses in zippered bags that engulf the body, then packing them with ice cubes and water, until they cool to safe levels.
It’s a technique that has been used for years to cool overheated soldiers or athletes facing heat stroke. Now the bags are being routinely deployed in some emergency rooms and on ambulance calls.
In Phoenix, where record-breaking temperatures last year killed 645 people, fire trucks and ambulances have been equipped with specially designed “immersion bags,” said Phoenix Fire Captain Todd Keller. Emergency responders fill the bags with water and ice at fire stations before heading out on heat-related calls, he said.
“Sometimes, when they get to the hospital, the ice is completely melted, the patient is so hot,” Mr. Keller said.
Patients typically stay inside 15 to 20 minutes or so, until their body temperature is reduced to about 101 degrees Fahrenheit. A pilot program using the therapy in Phoenix last summer proved successful enough that fire officials decided to deploy it across the entire department.
Last summer, Phoenix broke records with 31 straight days of the temperature reaching or exceeding 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Medical workers say it doesn’t take long to overheat in extremely hot weather, or even in temperatures that aren’t excessive if someone isn’t adapted to the heat.
Studies showing the efficacy of cold water immersion were carried out by the military in the 1990s. Yet there has been widespread fear that immersion could cool a body too quickly and provoke a stroke or heart attack. Instead, emergency responders were often advised to mist patients with water and to fan their bodies to cool them. More recent guidance has taught responders to put ice or cold water on a patient’s major arteries in the groin, neck and other areas.
