Brutal summer temperatures will keep killing high school athletes unless their parents demand rules to protect them, says an expert in such deaths.
At least three heat-related deaths on practice fields have been reported in the past week, as high school football season nears. Two high-school football players from Georgia and a coach in Texas have died amid sweltering temperatures.
In addition, four high school players in Arkansas were hospitalized for dehydration as temperatures hit a record-high 114 degrees on Wednesday. The weekend death of a 28-year-old runner in a Kansas City, Missouri, endurance race also was blamed on heatstroke.
"We think it was the worst week in the last 35 years in terms of athlete deaths," said Dr. Douglas Casa, chief operating officer of the Korey Stringer Institute of health medicine at the University of Connecticut and author of the book "Preventing Sudden Death in Sports and Physical Activity."
http://www.cnn.com/2011/SPORT/08/04/heat.deaths/index.html