June 29, 2021

Heat exhaustion/heat stroke.

 I'm trying to read this WaPo article, "As Portland, Ore., copes with unprecedented heat, illnesses spike and roads buckle":

PORTLAND, Ore. ­— Kim and Kathy Stoughton thought they could wait out the record-breaking heat in their east Portland apartment, even though they don't have air conditioning. 

But by Sunday, they couldn’t take it anymore. 

“I felt fatigued, extremely uncomfortable, mad,” said Kim, who is in his 60s. He was also dizzy and confused, signs of heatstroke...

 Heatstroke?! Come on, haven't we all seen charts like this?

Dizziness is on the heat exhaustion side, not the heat stroke side. And we're told:

So the couple headed to Sunrise Center, a community-center-turned-cooling-station open 24 hours through Tuesday.

That's the appropriate action to take for heat exhaustion. If it were heat stroke, they should have called 911.  This is such basic and important health information. Why can't The Washington Post get that right?! It's so embarrassing. 

That article has been up for more than 6 hours. Fix it!

5 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

David writes:

How many times do people have to see completely uncorroborated, unverified things in the WaPo to understand that it's reporters and editors don't understand or care about being accurate and to stop buying it or wasting time on it? This is particularly corrosive for people who read an article about some subject they don't know well and believe they are being educated. The chances of their education being sound is very low.

I point to the Gell Mann Amnesia Effect.


I'll just speak for myself.

1. I read things looking for problems so I can write this blog. So WaPo is a great source for that.

2. All sources have these problems. If you think you have a source that doesn't, then that's a bigger problem.

3. The big, elite news sources are important and influential, so what they are doing is something that is happening in our culture. If you want to turn away from everything that offends your taste for truth and accuracy, you might as well withdraw into a cabin off the grid and focus your interest on the plants and animals and sunrises and sunsets.

Ann Althouse said...

Tim writes:

“I felt fatigued, extremely uncomfortable, mad,” said Kim

Mad? Why? Did the article say who he was mad at or why? Mad like mad dogs and Englishmen? Or mad like, "why hasn't the government bought me an air conditioner?"

"1. I read things looking for problems so I can write this blog. So WaPo is a great source for that."

Did you realize when you were writing that sentence how funny it is? You probably did.


Of course, I did.

Ann Althouse said...

Birches writes:

"I'm very surprised by how many people thought they were better off staying inside without air conditioning in their homes. I'm from AZ. Growing up we were not allowed to put the thermostat below 80 degrees. This is not an uncommon setting for not wealthy people. But the air conditioning at stores is always nice and cold. If I were in Portland, I would have gone to the mall. Most cars have AC, a long drive would have been good too. Even outside in the shade is better than houses with lots of windows that are acting as a greenhouse. I saw one person on Twitter put tinfoil over his wall of windows to block the heat. That's a true poor person in AZ solution. Brought back old memories."

Ann Althouse said...

Michael writes:

"The WashingtonPost & the New York Times -- are like the Detroit auto industry in the '70s -- Mostly incompetent and untrustworthy. Unsafe at any speed -- and they don't even know it"

Ann Althouse said...

Barbara B writes: "Back in the early '70s, I was in England during a heat wave. A newspaper reported that the 80 degree temps was causing the asphalt on the roads to melt. One headline--"Heat-crazed Dog Kills Master"--has stuck with me all these years."