This post is a continuation of the previous one which discusses the stages of dying in the heat. It is graphic, but is meant to make you take steps to prevent this from happening to you or anybody else you know.
Stage Five – Heat Exhaustion
When you reach this stage, you are very sick. You are running a fever, have a headache, are nauseous and feel like vomiting. But vomiting will only cause you to lose more fluids. You have no energy and feel weak, your actions are clumsy. Your will to live is slipping away, you don’t care much about anything. Your eyeballs are dry and your eyelids scrape across them painfully. Breathing is shallow and fast, and of course every breath you take gives up more precious moisture from your body. Your heart is pounding so loudly that you can hear it in your ears. As strange as it may seem, your skin is icy-cold and you could actually shiver.
Your heart is working overtime now. Because your fluid level has dropped, your heart needs to beat even harder to pump blood through your body. People who aren’t in the best of health to start with are highly susceptible to having a heart attack at this point because their heart is straining way too hard. Even those in good health will faint, sooner or later. This happens because your brain is doing everything it can to keep itself alive. If it can put your body into a coma, even for a short while, there is a chance it can regulate things enough to take care of itself. Your brain is in survival mode – it wants to get blood to the heart so it can be pumped to your brain. A lot of very bad things could happen to you at this point and you could still live: you could lose your eyesight, lose a kidney or have a heart attack. But if your brain dies, you’re done! It sucks up all the blood and oxygen it can get, but it’s still not enough. Your brain starts to malfunction.
You’ll hear echoes and get tunnel vision. You’ll fall on the ground, and if you lie there too long you’ll get second-degree burns on your skin from the super-heated desert floor. If you get up, you’ll fall down again. Amazingly, even at this point, you could still be saved, but you’re standing at the edge of the abyss. One more step and you will have passed the point of no return.
You are so confused – your memories are all mixed up with your dreams. You have visions. You vomit blood. The one clear thought you have is that you are thirsty. You dream of water, and would give anything for it, anything. People wandering in the desert who have found abandoned vehicles have broken open the radiators and have died from drinking the antifreeze.
Sooner or later, you realize that you have to drink your own urine. Most of us have grown up with the belief that this is something that we would never do. But now, at death’s doorstep, you decide that maybe you could do it. You urinate into whatever container you may have, or into your own hands. You try not to lose a single drop, and lament all the precious urine you’ve already wasted on the desert floor. You hold your breath and forget all about any taboos you’ve had up until now, and gulp down your own hot urine. You’ve done it, and you’re still alive! You’ve beaten death by drinking your own pee! Now you’re happy to drink it, realizing that it may save your life.
That first urine tastes pretty darn good, as urine goes. If it is still fairly early into your ordeal, it may be relatively clear, as it is the cycling through of your drinking water. The paler the color, the purer it is. Pale yellow is the Perrier of urine. The next time it has passed through your kidneys, it has picked up more impurities and is a little darker and saltier. By the third round, it is orange and it smells bad. The next round it is dark orange, and then after that a pale brown. After that, it becomes darker yet and is a more poisonous brown. It has the appearance of foaming Guiness. And by the time it is black, you are doomed. You probably couldn’t drink it even if you wanted to. It smells like fish, and you’d retch if you tried to drink it. By this point, there is more waste material in it than water.
Now the last stage of hyperthermia has begun.
Stage Six – Heat Stroke
The volume of your blood inside your poor body is as low as it can get. Circulation has become very sluggish. Your heart pumps harder than ever to supply your organs with oxygen and fluid. Empty blood vessels inside you collapse. You can no longer sweat, and because of that, your body’s natural cooling mechanism has broken down. Your body’s thermostat goes crazy, and you are having a core meltdown. Your temperature climbs to dangerous levels, reaching 105, 106, 107, 108 degrees. Your body goes into panic mode – it dilates all your capillaries near the surface of your skin, trying to flood your skin with blood to cool it off. You blush. Your eyes turn red, blood vessels burst. Later, the tissue of the whites of your eyes literally cooks – it turns pink, then crimson.
A strange thing happens next. Your skin becomes incredibly sensitive – it starts to burn and hurt so badly that your clothing feels like sandpaper next to your skin. At this point, some people strip down and remove all of their clothing. The US Border Patrol used to think that illegal entrants lost in the desert would become delirious and were trying to cool off by stripping naked. But they would find that the clothing had been folded carefully into a neat pile and was lying beside the corpses. They concluded that the wanderers couldn’t stand the irritation that the clothing was causing to their nerve endings, so they had stripped off all their clothing to avoid the pain of the chafing.
By the time you are naked, there is no doubt that you are hallucinating. You may dig a burrow into the dirt or sand, erroneously thinking that you can escape the sun. If you get under the superheated soil, your flesh will bake like a piece of meat in an oven. You may dive into sand, thinking it is water, and swim in it until you pass out. You choke to death because your throat is filled with dirt and rocks. The Border Patrol has concluded that this happens because you think you are drinking water.
Because your muscles lack water, they start to feed on themselves – they break down and start to rot. And once they are rotting inside you, they slough off clumps of dying cells into your bloodstream which is already thick and sluggish. Proteins are being stripped off your dying muscles. Pieces of cooked meat are falling out of your organs, only to clog your other organs. Your system shuts down in a cascade effect – your kidneys, your bladder, then your heart – they stop working. Then your brain winks out. You’re gone. It’s over and there’s no coming back. May you rest in peace.
I wouldn’t wish this horrible fate on anyone, yet it happens to hundreds of tortured souls each year here in our southwestern desert. And God only knows how many more are never found because the desert has wiped away any trace of their passage. The desert doesn’t care if you live or die – one more won’t make any difference.
Don’t become a statistic. Carry twice as much liquid as you think you might need. And do yourself a favor and bring an electrolyte replacement instead of water. There is a serious medical condition called hyponatremia – If your electrolyte levels become too low, drinking a lot of plain water can kill you. Carry a good map and know how to use it. A GPS or a compass may save your life. And always let someone know your planned route.
On July 6, 2002 a young couple set out to climb Picacho Peak north of Tucson, which is in a state park right next to I-10, a busy freeway. She was found dead beside the well-traveled trail to the summit, not far from the parking area. He fell to his death while going to get help for her, probably disoriented from dehydration. Please, plan carefully so you live to enjoy the desert another day.
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