Heat Exhaustion at a Fair
by Jen
(Minneapolis, MN, USA)
One of my best friends suffered heat exhaustion at a theme park in the area.
It was one of our last days of high school, and as tradition, the school would take all of the students out for a day at the fair.
Many other schools in our area had this same tradition, and thus the park was very overcrowded and the lines were exceptionally slow.
We were waiting in line for a water ride, and the line was completely packed.
This was a new ride back then, and with how hot it was - over 100 degrees - lots of people were looking forward to the refreshing water.
The sun was beating down and people had rolled up their t-shirt sleeves onto their shoulders even and everyone was sweaty and disgusting.
I started noticing that my friend was sweating quite a lot more than everyone else and despite her wiping it off continuously, it was absolutely dripping down all over her.
Her skin was very red and flushed and she looked sick, as if she was nauseated and completely fatigued.
I kept asking her if she was all right and she kept denying anything was wrong, but suddenly she seemed lethargic and out of it.
Shortly after that she collapsed to the ground and seemed to faint.
It seemed to take forever for the park staff to get to where we were.
Someone in line let us have their water bottle and she drank some of it, but she was totally exhausted.
The other kids in line didn't help either, as nobody wanted to get out of the way (out of line) for the new fantastic ride.
She was brought to the nurse's station and had to drink plenty of water and rest, when her father came and got her.
Her father was insistent that me and our other friends enjoy our rest of the stay at the park, and thankfully she was okay.
But by not having ever seen such a thing happen before, even at 18 years old was quite scary and shocking.
