With North Texas in its third day below freezing, paramedics are seeing more calls for cold exposure. In Fort Worth, the ambulance provider, MedStar, had treated 38 patients for hypothermia from Friday through about noon Tuesday.
"We've had an increase, certainly, in our cold exposure calls," says MedStar's Matt Zavadsky. "When you think about the ambient temperature and then the wind chill, it has been really dangerously and life threateningly cold for a lot of people out there."
Zavadsky says the cold can be dangerous on its own, but people with underlying conditions like diabetes or a heart or breathing problem could be at greater risk.
"Those types of conditions could become quickly aggravated in weather like this, so we see an increase just in regular medical calls from people who are outside," he says.
Zavadsky says one of the most common mistakes is people who think hypothermia will not happen to them. He says a review of cases from last weekend showed many patients were taken by surprise.
"'I'm just going to run to the mailbox' or 'I'm just going to run to the store, so I'm not going to bring a jacket,'" he says. "If you even have to be out less than half an hour, cover every part of your body because you're going to lose heat very quickly, the wind is still flapping."
Zavadsky says shivering is the body's notification that it is trying to generate heat, so you need to go inside. If you stop shivering, he says you need to call 911.
"That's a very bad sign because that shows their body has gotten to the point where it can no longer generate its own heat," he says.
For kids who have been home from school, Zavadsky urges parents to think of A Christmas Story.
"The scene where the little brother couldn't put his arms down, that's exactly what you want to plan on, certainly for the rest of the day and into [Wednesday] morning because children do not have the ability to maintain body heat the same way older folks do, so you want to make sure they are completely covered including facemasks, scarves, hat, gloves."
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