Call your local health department to see if there are any heat-relief shelters in your area. Rest often in shady areas so that your body has a chance to recover. Pace Yourself: Cut down on exercise during the heat. If exertion in the heat makes your heart pound and leaves you gasping for breath, STOP all activity. Get into a cool area or into the shade, and rest, especially if you become lightheaded, confused, weak, or faint. If you must go outdoors, protect yourself from the sun by wearing a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses, and by putting on sunscreen of SPF 15 or higher 30 minutes prior to going out.
Continue to reapply it according to the package directions. Do Not Leave Children in Cars: Cars can quickly heat up to dangerous temperatures, even with a window cracked open. While anyone left in a parked car is at risk, children are especially at risk of getting a heat stroke or dying. When traveling with children, remember to do the following:.
Drink Plenty of Fluids: Drink more fluids, regardless of how active you are. Replace Salt and Minerals: Heavy sweating removes salt and minerals from the body that need to be replaced. A sports drink can replace the salt and minerals you lose in sweat. This does not actually cool the air so moving air must impact the worker directly to be effective. Heat conduction blocking methods include insulating the hot surface that generates the heat and changing the surface itself.
Simple devices such as shields, can be used to reduce radiant heat, i. Polished surfaces make the best barriers, although special glass or metal mesh surfaces can be used if visibility is a problem With some sources of radiation, such as heating pipes, it is possible to use both insulation and surface modifications to achieve a substantial reduction in radiant heat.
Acclimatize workers by exposing them to work in a hot environment for progressively longer periods. Ample supplies of liquids should be placed close to the work area. Although some commercial replacement drinks contain salt, this is not necessary for acclimatized individuals because most people add enough salt to their summer diets. Reduce the physical demands by reducing physical exertion such as excessive lifting, climbing, or digging with heavy objects.
Spread the work over more individuals, use relief workers or assign extra workers. Provide external pacing to minimize overexertion. Provide recovery areas such as air-conditioned enclosures and rooms and provide intermittent rest periods with water breaks.
Reschedule hot jobs for the cooler part of the day, and routine maintenance and repair work in hot areas should be scheduled for the cooler seasons of the year. Personal monitoring can be done by checking the heart rate, recovery heart rate, oral temperature, or extent of body water loss.
To check the heart rate, count pulse for 30 seconds at the beginning of the rest period. If the heart rate exceeds beats per minute, shorten the next work period by one third and maintain the same rest period. The recovery heart rate can be checked by comparing the pulse rate taken at 30 seconds P1 with the pulse rate taken at 2. The two pulse rates can be interpreted using the following criteria. Check oral temperature with a clinical thermometer after work but before the employee drinks water.
If the oral temperature taken under the tongue exceeds Measure body water loss by weighing the worker on a scale at the beginning and end of each work day. The worker's weight loss should not exceed 1. If a weight loss exceeding this amount is observed, fluid intake should increase.
Develop a heat stress training program, and incorporate into health and safety plans at least the following components:. Reflective clothing , which can vary from aprons and jackets to suits that completely enclose the worker from neck to feet, can reduce the radiant heat reaching the worker.
However, since most reflective clothing does not allow air exchange through the garment, the reduction of radiant heat must more than offset the corresponding loss in evaporative cooling. For this reason, reflective clothing should be worn as loosely as possible. In situations where radiant heat is high, auxiliary cooling systems can be used under the reflective clothing. Auxiliary body cooling ice vests , though heavy, may accommodate as many as 72 ice packets, which are usually filled with water.
Carbon dioxide dry ice can also be used as a coolant. The cooling offered by ice packets lasts only 2 to 4 hours at moderate to heavy heat loads, and frequent replacement is necessary.
However, ice vests do not tether the worker and thus permit maximum mobility. Cooling with ice is also relatively inexpensive. Wetted clothing such as terry cloth coveralls or two-piece, whole-body cotton suits are another simple and inexpensive personal cooling technique.
It is effective when reflective or other impermeable protective clothing is worn. This approach to auxiliary cooling can be quite effective under conditions of high temperature, good air flow, and low humidity. Water-cooled garments range from a hood, which cools only the head, to vests and "long johns," which offer partial or complete body cooling.
Use of this equipment requires a battery-driven circulating pump, liquid-ice coolant, and a container. Although this system has the advantage of allowing wearer mobility, the weight of the components limits the amount of ice that can be carried and thus reduces the effective use time.
The heat transfer rate in liquid cooling systems may limit their use to low-activity jobs; even in such jobs, their service time is only about 20 minutes per pound of cooling ice. To keep outside heat from melting the ice, an outer insulating jacket should be an integral part of these systems.
Employers should provide training to workers so they understand what heat stress is, how it affects their health and safety, and how it can be prevented. Learn how to identify the symptoms and protect yourself from heat stress. Now available in ePub format. The approach of summer is a reminder to us all of the need to recognize, and act to prevent, the harmful effects of excessive heat.
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