In the state of Georgia, ignoring heat wave warnings and ‘forcing’ an outdoor event, it happened that about 20 people with heat illness occurred in a pile at once.
Georgia’s Savannah Morning News, citing local fire authorities on the 1st, said that at least 10 people, including children, were taken to the emergency room at Lake Mayer Park in Savannah, Georgia on the afternoon of the 30th of last month with heat-related illness.
In addition, 10 other people received first aid at the scene and were handed over to their guardians. An official from the Savannah Fire Department said that all those hospitalized were in an emergency related to heat illness and were discharged after receiving sufficient fluids.
They were attending a local event hosted by Louisiana State University’s popular women’s basketball player, Flauge Johnson. At the time of the event, the temperature in the Savannah area reached 35 degrees, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a heat wave warning, but the organizers went ahead with the event.
The organizers had a fire truck on standby at the event site in case of an emergency. However, from around 4:20 pm, heat-related patients began to appear one after another, and the situation was difficult for on-site emergency personnel to cope with, so two additional fire trucks were dispatched in an emergency, the fire department said.
In the end, the Savannah police and fire department immediately stopped the event and closed the park until the 31st, the day after the accident, to prevent similar incidents from occurring. Savannah Fire Chief Joseph Shaw said, “This situation is unprecedented.” The city of Savannah, where the accident occurred, is a port city located in southern Georgia, and a factory dedicated to Hyundai Motor Company’s electric vehicles is being built in nearby Brian County.