Sizzling sidewalks, unshaded playgrounds pose risk for surface burns over searing Southwest summer
PHOENIX — Ron Falk lost his right leg, underwent extensive skin grafting on his left leg and is still recovering, a year after he collapsed on the scorching asphalt outside a Phoenix convenience store where he stopped for a cold soda during a heat wave.
Now in a wheelchair, the 62-year-old has lost his job and his home. He is recovering in a medical reception center for patients who have nowhere else to go; there he receives physical therapy and treatment for a bacterial infection in what is left of his right leg. The leg is too swollen to use the prosthesis he had hoped would help him walk again.
“If you don’t cool down somewhere, the heat will affect you,” said Falk, who passed out from heatstroke. “Then you don’t know what’s going to happen, like in my case.”
Hot sidewalks and unshaded playgrounds pose a risk of surface burns as air temperatures rise. reaching new summer heights In cities in the Southwest, like Phoenix, which just had its warmest June on record. The average daily temperature was 109.5 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius), with no 24-hour temperatures below 100 (37.7 degrees Celsius).
Young children, the elderly and the homeless are at particularly high risk for contact burns, which can occur in seconds when skin comes into contact with a surface that is 82 degrees Celsius (180 degrees Fahrenheit).
Since early June, 50 people have been hospitalized with such burns and four have died at Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix, which operates the largest burn center in the Southwest and serves patients from Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Southern California and Texas, said its president, Dr. Kevin Foster. About 80 percent were injured in metro Phoenix.
Last year, the center admitted 136 patients for superficial burns from June through August, up from 85 during the same period in 2022, Foster said. Fourteen died. One in five was homeless.
“Last year’s record heat wave left an alarming number of patients with life-threatening burns,” Foster said of a Period of 31 days, including the entire month of July, with temperatures of 110 degrees Fahrenheit or higher during Phoenix’s hottest summer on record.
In Las Vegas, where summer temperatures regularly reach triple digits, 22 people were hospitalized at University Medical Center’s Lions Burn Care Center in June alone, said spokesman Scott Kerbs. That’s nearly half the 46 who were hospitalized in all three summer months last year.
Like Phoenix, the desert sun in Las Vegas beats down for hours every day, burning surfaces like asphalt, concrete, and metal car doors and playground equipment like swings and monkey tails.
Victims of superficial burns often include children injured by walking barefoot on glowing concrete or touching hot surfaces, adults who collapsed on the sidewalk while intoxicated, and elderly people who fell on the sidewalk due to heatstroke or other medical emergency.
Some do not survive.
Thermal injuries were among the leading or contributing causes of last year’s accidents. 645 heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.
One of the victims was an 82-year-old woman with dementia and heart disease who was admitted to a suburban Phoenix hospital after she was found on a scorching sidewalk one August day when the temperature reached 106 degrees Fahrenheit.
With a body temperature of 105 degrees (40.5 C), the woman was rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns on her back and right side, covering 8% of her body. She died three days later.
Many patients with superficial burns also developed potentially fatal heat stroke.
The Valleywise Hospital Emergency Department recently had a new protocol for all heatstroke victims: immerse patients in a bag of ice to quickly lower their body temperature.
Burn patients often had long recovery times. Patients underwent multiple skin grafts and other surgeries, followed by months of recovery in nursing homes or rehabilitation centers.
Bob Woolley, 71, suffered second- and third-degree burns to his hands, arms, legs and torso after accidentally stepping into the scorching rock garden in the backyard of his Phoenix home while wearing only swim trunks and a tank top.
“The ordeal was extremely painful, it was almost unbearable,” said Woolley, who spent several months in the hospital at Valleywise Burn Center. He said he considers himself “95 percent recovered” after extensive skin grafts and physical therapy and has resumed some of his previous activities, such as swimming and riding motorcycles.
Some of the burn victims, in both Phoenix and Las Vegas, were children.
“In many cases, these are toddlers walking or crawling on hot surfaces,” Kerbs said of the people hospitalized in Las Vegas.
According to Foster, about 20 percent of burn victims admitted to the Phoenix hospital or treated in the outpatient clinic are children.
Small children do not realize how dangerous a red-hot metal doorknob or a scorching hot sidewalk can be.
“Because they’re playing, they’re not paying attention,” says urban climatologist Ariane Middel, an assistant professor at Arizona State University who led the study. SHaDE laba research team studying the effects of urban heat.
“They might not even notice it’s hot.”
When measuring surface temperatures For playground equipment, the team found that in 100-degree Fahrenheit (37.7 C) weather without shade, a slide can heat up to 160 degrees (71.1 C), but a cover can bring that down to 111 degrees (43.8 C). A rubber ground cover can heat up to 188 degrees (86.6 C), a handrail can heat up to 120 degrees (48.8 C), and concrete can heat up to 132 degrees (55.5 C).
Many parks in metro Phoenix have covered picnic tables and plastic sheeting over playground equipment, which keeps metal or plastic surfaces up to 30 degrees cooler. But many don’t, Middel said.
She said cooler wood chips are better underfoot than rubber mats, which are designed to protect children from head injuries but can absorb heat in the blazing sun. Like rubber, artificial turf gets hotter than asphalt.
“We need to think about alternative surface types because most of the surfaces we use for our infrastructure are heat sponges,” Middel said.
Hot concrete and asphalt also pose a burn risk to pets.
Veterinarians recommend that dogs wear safety glasses boots to protect their paws during outdoor walks in the summer, or to keep them on cooler grassy areas. Owners are also advised to make sure their pets drink plenty of water and don’t overheat. Phoenix prohibits dogs from the city’s popular hiking trails on days when the National Weather Service issues an extreme heat warning.
As he recovers at Circle the City in Phoenix, a care center he was sent to after being discharged from Valleywise’s burn unit, Falk says he never imagined the Phoenix heat would leave him stranded on the blazing asphalt in his shorts and T-shirt.
With no identification or phone on him, no one knew where he was for months. He still has a long way to go, but still hopes to get some of his old life back, working for an entertainment events concessionaire.
“I kind of went into a downward spiral,” Falk admitted. “I finally woke up and said, ‘Hey, wait, I lost a leg.’ But that doesn’t mean you’re useless.”