Published: June 26, 2009 04:21 pm      

Beware of heat stress; know the signs

Paramedic Amanda Archer told Sertoma members Thursday to beware of heat stress.

“Once you stop sweating, we’ve got an emergency,” Archer said. “When you stop it means there’s nothing left. People often don’t know they’re under heat stress.”

Often patients don’t call for help until they are really in danger, Archer said. Once paramedics get to patients, they treat them with intravenous fluids, take their body temperature at three points and put them on the cardiac monitor. She said heat stress causes the heart to race.

“Most people could avoid all this by drinking water and Gatorade,” Archer said. She said not to drink caffeinated drinks or alcohol because they cause dehydration.

“They taste good, but they dehydrate you more,” Archer said.

Archer said if a heat stressed person should fall, they should be shaded but left where they fall until

medical help arrives.

Because Mayes County has an advanced 911 system, Archer said a person can be pinpointed from the GPS

system in a cell phone.

Archer works in the Adair detachment of Mayes Emergency Services Trust Authority. She said she became a paramedic because when she was 14 years old she was ejected in a car wreck and spent four days in a coma.

“I have no memory of that,” Archer said, “but I made a wrong choice when I was a kid not to wear a seatbelt. When paramedics got to me I was not breathing. The medics got me breathing and breathed for me until I was flown to St. Francis.”

Archer said the worst situation she has faced since she has been a paramedic involved a member of her family. “We got a call that a woman was unresponsive in her car,” Archer said. The woman turned out to be Archer’s cousin who had overdosed and was in full cardiac arrest.

“A lot of things went through my head,” Archer said. “I couldn’t believe I was having to work on my cousin.”

Archer grew up and graduated from high school in Chouteau. She has lived in Pryor for 15 years.

Fred Sordahl presided over his last meeting as Sertoma president. New officers will be sworn in next week at noon.

Carl Osborn announced the Boy Scouts worked 540 hours at Country Fever and earned $3,000. Osborn said the Boy Scouts will travel to Yellowstone

July 27.