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Avoid Heat Exhaustion During Record-Breaking Heat

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — As this blast of hot weather goes on, you have to worry about spending too much time in the heat. For the elderly, or kids out playing sports, it's a very real danger.

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Dr. Janet Semple-Hess Talks To KNX 1070

With soccer leagues in full swing, kids are kicking around everyday. And when we get a burst of extremely hot weather, spending hours out on the field could be very risky - no matter what the sport.

Dr. Dr. Janet Semple-Hess, who works in the emergency room at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, says when you suffer from heat exhaustion, you have to drink a lot of fluid and cool down as soon as possible.

With heat stroke, however, it's much more critical.

"Heat stroke is when they become combative, comatose, altered, not acting right on the field. When their core temperature exceeds 104 degrees," she says. "That's a medical emergency, a need to go to an ER emergency.

Semple-Hess says when you're initially suffering from a heat-related illness, you may feel dizzy, have cramping of the legs, and you may be disoriented. But when is it really serious for people?

"When they seem altered, not acting correctly, wobbling, hot and dry to the touch."

Some high school cross country runners in Fullerton suffered from heat exhaustion yesterday and others went through the same thing a little over a month ago in Woodland Hills, which did not make LAUSD chief Ray Cortines happy at all.

"There is a policy, when the heat reaches 95 and above, cancel it. And we didn't cancel it."

Sometimes, though, parents may need to step in. And some soccer moms and soccer dads tell us if that's what they have to do, they won't hesitate.

(©2010 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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