Warm weather spurs heat-related calls along Warriors victory parade route
SAN FRANCISCO -- There were dozens of first-aid calls along Market Street due to heat-related issues during the Warriors parade, in San Francisco, according to emergency responders..
KPIX 5 reporter Andrea Nakano first started hearing about the first-aid calls shortly before 12:30 p.m. from where she was near the end of the planned parade route. She tweeted the information and a photo, saying that she spotted one young woman receiving treatment.
Firefighters were advising people experiencing dehydration and heat exhaustion to drink water and seek shade.
By early Monday evening, fire officials said the numbers had risen to 90 calls for emergency service along the parade route, with 21 of those calls requiring transport to area hospitals. In addition to the mostly heat-related calls, first responders said there were some calls for trauma and heart or diabetes-related issues.
"Curry came right up to where we were and shook up all the champagne, but then what happened was all the people behind us pushed forward and I actually almost fell over at one point," said Belinda Kerr of Alameda.
The absolute fervor mixed with an unusually warm day in San Francisco led to many medical emergencies - most of them were heat-related. One person suffered a heart attack, others fainted.
"I was in the footprint, in the crowds and it was shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the crowds, and when you have body heat that's coming off of tens of thousands of people and you also have large buildings that are going to reflect the heat down onto the street," said SF Fire Lt. Jonathan Baxter. "And you're standing in that area for in some cases hours without any hydration, that's when you're going to see the effects of dehydration and even the heat in these circumstances."
Baxter said he also witnessed fans helping others in distress.
"There was an older man and they actually took him out of the crowd area and got a chair for him to sit in until the medics came and helped him and it looked like it was sunstroke because they helped shade him," said Baxter.
Toward the end of the parade, enthusiastic fans swarmed Klay Thompson's bus.
Thousands hopped barriers and buses came to a slow crawl as police officers tried to keep fans from getting too close.
"We were getting really cramped, there was a lot of yelling, a lot of people just getting crushed, so afterwards, after using the restroom I took the side alleys, because there was nobody on the side alleys," said Aaron Allen of Sacramento.
The Bay Area is in for more hot temperatures this week, with some parts hitting triple digits.
"This isn't something that's necessarily going to happen every June from here on out. This is the type of weather pattern that is more likely to occur more frequently in the early summer months thanks to the influence of climate change," said KPIX 5 Chief Meteorologist Paul Heggen. "We're not going to completely lose the marine layer, June gloom is eventually going to return and there are going to be years when it's just going to be impossible to shake the fog during the entire month of June. But this type of pattern with wild ups and downs to our temperatures - it's part of the global weirding."
Betty Yu and Andrea Nakano contributed to this report.
