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American Morning

Heat Claims Life of All-Pro Football Player

Aired August 01, 2001 - 10:44   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.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: The heat has claimed the life of an all-pro football player. Minnesota Vikings' offensive tackle Korey Stringer died early this morning from complications of heat stroke. Doctors say that by the time Stringer arrived at the hospital his body temperature had reached 108 degrees. The 27-year-old Ohio native, who stood six-foot-four and weighed 335 pounds, was practicing with the team in a heat index that was reaching 111 degrees.

So what is heat stroke? What are the warning signs? For that, we turn to CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He joins us here.

Hi, Sanjay.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi.

KELLEY: What is heat stroke and heat exhaustion? What's the difference between those two?

GUPTA: Let me just start off by saying heat stroke is certainly the one that is the worst one. That's the one that people worry about dying from. The symptoms of heat exhaustion. There are several of them actually to think about. One of them is that you actually have heavy sweating with heat exhaustion. You may have muscle cramps. You may have tiredness, faintness, dizziness. That is in contrast to heat stroke.

In this case, the body temperature may rise very high, as you just mentioned, over 103 degrees at least. You stop sweating, you're cooling mechanisms shut down. You may develop a rapid pulse, meaning that your heart is working overtime, and you develop confusion, which may cause to forget to during, or stop the activity. Subsequently, unconsciousness and death can result as well from heat stroke. So heat stroke is the worst one, and all those bad things can happen if you get too hot.

KELLY: OK, so there are symptoms, and you tell us what to watch for, and then to drink and to get out of the activity.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Joining us from sister network, CNN/"Sports Illustrated" is Trev Alberts, who is a kind of analyst downstairs, and also former football ballplayer. He played with the Colts for the number of years. What was your first thought when you heard the story this morning? TREV ALBERTS, CNN/"SPORTS ILLUSTRATED": Well you know, it's amazing, and first of all, I think sooner or later you were going to see this type of thing happen in the National Football League. I mean, 18 high school or college players since 1995 have died of heat exhaustion. So it's something that we have to deal with.

And it's such a contrast as a football players, because on the one hand, you're told, Leon, you've got to be tough, fight through the pain, but on the other hand, you have to be smart enough to say, wait a minute, my body is telling me I can't go so much longer.

But in this situation, the Minnesota Vikings trainers, I think, really ought to feel awfully bad right now. On Monday, this young man got carried off the field on a stretcher. He could not practice. The following day he's back on the field in 112-degree heat. So something needs to be done.

HARRIS: Are you saying they should have seen this coming?

ALBERTS: I don't know if they should see it coming, but the reality is this, when guys have incidents like this, where you have to be carried off the field, you need to have a common sense and step in and say, listen, something needs to happen -- 112-degree heat. We are not trying to prove how tough we are anymore. Now we're worried about people dying from heat failure.

HARRIS: That's like -- I'd hate to use the term Monday morning quarterbacking, but you know, that's what we say after the fact. But when you're in the heat of it, though, when a guy looks at him and sees how tired he is, and he understands that the coach is asking him to dig even deeper, I mean, that's like a red badge of courage, if you will, for a guy to be able to come back after being carried off the field.

ALBERTS: I think therein lies the problem. I remember when I was with the Indianapolis Colts and one time off the field I literally lost all control of my bodily functions, I was that exhausted. You lose 9-10 pounds after every practice. And I had to get an IV. I remember lying in there, getting the IV. And one guy after another starts coming in there and making fun of you, and laughing at you -- you big wuss, you couldn't handle the practice. So that's what these guys are -- the ones who are still trying to prove that you're a man, not take anything from teammates, but yet be smart enough to understand that, hey, if you're not careful, if you don't have enough fluids in you, you could die.

HARRIS: All right, well, you said this has happened a number of times before. Has the league stepped in before in the past? Will the league step in now? What?

ALBERTS: I think the league has to step in now. I think something needs to be done. They haven't so far, because obviously, it hasn't happened before. But now is the time that the trainers, the league needs to get together and say, listen, that's all good, you are trying to be tough and everything, but Korey Stringer come in, here's a guy who got down to 335. He played at about 365. HARRIS: The best shape he's been in.

ALBERTS: The best shape he's ever been in. And you are at 112- degree heat. Someone needs to step in and say, hey, listen, we don't need this anymore.

HARRIS: All right, good deal. Trev Alberts, thanks so much for the insight, for the input on this. This is a story that we don't want to have to do again.

ALBERTS: Terrible.

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