cooling down the heat stroke victim

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In the EMS classes that I have taken going back to the basic EMT class
that I took in the US State of North Carolina in the mid 80's, it was
always stressed that heat stroke is a true emergency requiring
immediate attention.

Do you have any evidence to back up your statement about EMTs learning
about heat stroke from the movies? I would hope that trained rescuers
everywhere rely on their training and field experience, rather than on
depictions in films for determining their treatment. 

In the places that I have been active in prehospital care, heat stroke
is or was extremely rare, whereas heat exhaustion is something that one
sees a lot of, both among the public and among one's colleages. I have
suffered mild heat exhaustion a few times myself working strenuous
rescues or outside events on hot days. In the places I have been, there
has almost always been good access to shade, air conditioned vehicles
or buildings and plenty of liquids to drink, so early intervention in
cases of heat exhaustion, thus preventing their advancement to heat
stoke, is straightforward.

As with other conditions that one doesn't see very often, perhaps in
places where heat stroke is rare, the problem is one of recognition
rather than one of training, if, indeed, there is a problem at all?

Best wishes to all for very happy holidays.

John Annen
Zurich, Switzerland

--- oded private <tangentcarrot at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> BTW
> 
> It's amazing how virtullay everybody outside the medical world (such
> as lay 
> persons) and many inside it (such as EMTS') don't understand that
> heat 
> stroke is a true medical emergency. I think that holywood, with its
> reknown 
> scene you see in every third movie of someone lost in desert,
> starting to 
> get delrious then crashes, later to be "saved" with a few drops of
> water, 
> has much to do with it.
> 


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