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CNN Live At Daybreak

Minnesota Vikings' Korey Springer Dies of Heat Stroke

Aired August 02, 2001 - 08:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: The heat is more than just uncomfortable. You remember the story we told you yesterday, it can be deadly. Korey Springer of the Minnesota Vikings died of complications after suffering heat stroke. The Minnesota Vikings players are just devastated over this. He was a promising player -- dead of heat stroke at the age of 27.

So this is serious, serious stuff. And we want to tell you a little bit more about how to recognize some of the warning signs if you get into trouble.

Joining us now is CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here.

So what do we do? How do you know if you've got heat exhaustion, let's start with first?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Heat exhaustion is the less severe of the two. Heat stroke is more significant.

Heat exhaustion -- you have characteristic sweating a lot. You might get muscle cramping nausea even, tiredness.

With heat stroke, you actually stop sweating. Your cooling mechanisms shut down. You may get confused, which is important, because you may stop drinking, forget to drink or stop forgetting to do the activity that you are doing right now that is making you so hot. You may even lapse into unconsciousness, which is what happened yesterday. And subsequently have your organs shut down, which could lead potentially to death or a significant illness.

MCEDWARDS: Recognizing the symptoms is one thing. But what about preventing it ever happening? I mean, what do you need to do to make sure that you don't start to feel that way?

GUPTA: Right. One thing, you know, people -- a lot of the common things: make to drink before you do activities in addition to while you are doing activities and stay hydrated afterwards. Pace yourself -- if you are doing yard work, if you're doing athletics, make sure to pace yourself. Try and exercise with somebody, so in case you do get into that confused sort of state, that you have somebody around with you that can, you know, tell you to start drinking or stop working or doing whatever. And then finally, if you can whenever possible, try and get out of the heat -- try and get out of the sun.

MCEDWARDS: All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks very much.

GUPTA: Thank you.

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