sas recruit in coma from heatstroke

[wayno]

anyone else had heatstroke? any advice on avoiding it?
i live nearby to where this happened, it wasnt especially hot yesterday, infact it was 11 degrees in the morning, there was a cool southerly breeze and it got up to about 18 degrees, the humidity did get into the nineties later in the day. looks more like dehydration would have caused it
I saw the doco on aussies trying out for hte sas and it looked like it was a cold part of the year , they were all rugged up when they wern't active and didnt seem to be pouring sweat.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic ... d=10781974

[matagi]

Humidity also impairs the body's ability to regulate temperature in response to exertion. So despite the ambient temperature being low, if the humidity was in the nineties and he was pushing hard, it is quite possible to get heatstroke under those conditions.

[wayno]

also chances are in trying out for the sas, this was just one of a number of days where he would have been exerting himself hard.
also i saw on the aussie sas doco at one stage they didnt feed them for five days and one chap passed out. the policy is not to pull them out unless the candidate volunteers to withdraw or unless they get a medico to rule them out. in aus they only get one shot to try out, so it makes them more reluctant to quit/

a physio i know has had a couple of ex SAS soldiers as clients, he said their knees were stuffed from their time there, carrying very heavy loads for long distances on rough terrain.

[JohnM]

Run a few hot weather marathons and seen a few people succumb. It's generally the humidity far moreso than the heat that gets you. Usually it's the people who aren't sufficiently trained for the task they've set themselves... You can safely do endurance events in hot and humid conditions if you're well trained and sensible.

Main advice... Be fit, drink plenty (not just water, you need to replace electrolytes), and if you ever find yourself not sweating as much as you think you should, or getting a little lightheaded, stop immediately.

[juxtaposer]

Heatstroke has killed a few people in the Blue Mountains over the years, and in plenty of other places. It can kill you going down a hill as well as up. When walking on the bigger ridges in summer you must have plenty of water. I cooked myself one time going down off Paralyzer (a descent of 3,000 foot+): swollowed the last out of the bottle at the top, thinking it was all down hill to the next drink. I was fit, and be down in short order, I thought. But it was 100 degrees in Sydney that day and there was a hot wind on the tops. When you stop sweating you know you are in a fix. You see, it is dehydration that leads to heatstroke (as opposed to sunstroke). Sunstroke affects your brain, heatstroke all your vital organs, especially your heart, which starts to race like crazy, and your balance is shot. In my case the last few hundred feet I could only progress about 50 metres or so at a time and, as much as I desperately needed to get down to water, I had to stop at certain points to allow my pulse to settle, otherwise I was risking serious damage to the heart. After about 10 minutes at a time my heart beat would settle enough for me to continue another stretch. Having to sit and wait in such a terribly overheated state was very stressful and it took some discipline, especially when I got close enough to see the river below me. When I got to the river I just walked in and sat there for the rest of the day. I don't even think I bothered to take my pack off at first. The problem with the heart still had to be monitored and I found my way out to civilization over the next couple of days very sluggishly. And so ends my cautionary tale, except to say that I was lucky: there was a well known case in the Wild Dogs in the 1940's. You'll find that poor chap's grave at the foot of Yellow Dog Ridge.

[andre35]

also chances are in trying out for the sas, this was just one of a number of days where he would have been exerting himself hard.
also i saw on the aussie sas doco at one stage they didnt feed them for five days and one chap passed out. the policy is not to pull them out unless the candidate volunteers to withdraw or unless they get a medico to rule them out. in aus they only get one shot to try out, so it makes them more reluctant to quit/

a physio i know has had a couple of ex SAS soldiers as clients, he said their knees were stuffed from their time there, carrying very heavy loads for long distances on rough terrain.

That doco was quite good, but there is a lot more to it than what the cameras shown for obvious reasons. You're right, knee and lower back injuries are very common as I'm sure they are to anyone that does lots of bush walking with big loads. Heat stroke is a real killer. Seen the effects of it on a mate. Luckily for him we were able to ID it and start treating him straight away. As stated by someone else you really have to monitor your fluid intake to exertion levels. Everyone should know how to ID heat stroke and how to treat it because it can kill very fast.