When it gets this hot, all the famous songs of summer come to mind .From Motown, we hear Heat Wave. From the Lovin’ Spoonful, we enjoy Summer in the City and from Gershwin, we sing along to Summertime. The songs glorify a season when living is easy and human fireworks are burning.
But summer in New Mexico tells a different story.
According to the New Mexico Department of Health, since April 1, about 770 people have gone to New Mexico health facilities for heat-related emergencies.
KSFR turned to the University of New Mexico expert and emergency room practitioner, Dr. Jon Femling, to help us understand the medical implications of the summer of 2026 heat wave. Here’s a summary of his remarks.
- This summer we’re seeing more days of heat and hotter temperatures on those days. The combination leads to the risk of more people exposed to high heat. Folks especially at high-risk are the elderly and the youth. During late summer heat, youth are going back to school and starting to practice and exercise more outside. More of these high heat days increase the chances of going outside in the heat and getting sick.
- When asked about the difference between heat stress and heat stroke, Dr. Femling noted that it’s a continuum rather than a clear demarcation. When heading into heat stress, you get tired and lose some of your ability to cool off. You sweat a lot and you lose both fluids and some electrolytes. When your body can no longer function at a normal range, that’s when you go from heat stress into heat stroke, and your brain isn’t working as much or as well as before. But everybody doesn’t respond to heat at the same level. Some people may get dehydrated, while others may be on medications for allergies or high blood pressure which can affect your ability to cool off and thus move you into the heat stroke category much faster.
- As an emergency medical practitioner, Dr. Femling reports that this summer he is seeing people coming in who are dehydrated, people who are overexercising in the heat causing muscle damage and women and men who suffer abnormal heart rhythm due to lack of fluids. These things show up not necessarily as heat problems, but the inability cool off the body contributes.
- Femling says that people can die from heat stroke. People come in who look like they’ve had a stroke but have no blockages which would be normal. But they don’t recover. He had one woman patient who was hiking in the foothills and was brought in and believed to be having a heat stroke. Even after being cooled down for heat distress, she ended up having a heart attack.
- Femling offered these tips for surviving the summer heat: Choose the right time of day to be outside, either morning or evening, but not midday; drink fluids a couple of hours before you go outside and keep up the fluid intake while outside. Although it sounds counterintuitive, you also need to keep up with your salt consumption when out in the heat. When you sweat you first lose water from the body, but you eventually begin to lose sodium. You need to replenish water and salt deficits to maintain the proper balance.
