In July of last year, a Mississippi high school sent 11 marching band members to the hospital after they collapsed during practice.
I was in the marching band in high school in the Mojave Desert, where the temperatures would regularly break 100F/40C. You lose a lot of water when you’re playing an instrument (they don’t have spit valves for nothing), and marching bands still maintain a lot of traditions from their military origins, so you do a lot of push-ups. The thick wool uniforms you wear during performances don’t help anything either – we had elaborate rituals involving baby powder to try to stay dry inside the uniform, which was harder than you might expect considering how dry the desert air is. We’d have a few kids pass out during band camp each summer, but I can only remember once someone went down during a performance – she marched right off the field and collapsed on the sideline, and was fine after some fluids and rest.
Heat strokes like that mean you’re at the edge of what can kill. Really bad sign if there is a culture of toughing it out
Agreed, but in the American South it is rampant and frustrating. I try to fight against it when I can, but it is very much an uphill battle.
… so you do a lot of push-ups.
Maybe in a drum and bugle corp but we sure as shit did not do pushups in Marching Band in high school. Maybe some light stretching but that was it.
Nope, just a normal high school marching band. Now drop and give me 20 for talking back.
……no
the sole reason I quit band in high school, was I didnt want to march in the uniforms
They very much do suck, and they don’t fit well, and like 75 other people have worn them before you. It was so much nicer to play away games in street clothes. Definitely paid off in college, though – my university flew us all over the place to play sports events.
I got heat exhaustion in high school during one game in central valley CA. I kept drinking water and taking deep breaths, but nothing cooled me down nor could I catch my breath. The refs had to stop the game, the other team brought me to their sideline and started shoving bags of ice into my uniform, then they had me go soak in their school’s pool for a few minutes to cool me down.
I’ve tried to avoid excessive heat ever since. I carry a water bottle with me wherever I go and it’s full anytime I leave the house.
I actually quit football my junior year because we moved across the country to a much warmer and more humid place, and I was not about to deal with that bullshit again.
More guns. Can’t let heat exhaustion become number 1.
How about abolishing competitive/professional sport once for all? And keeping sport, I don’t know, like, healthy?
I vote go against established conservative curriculum and teach matters that are presently happening with little regard for the whine it generates from those against it.
It’s important to not just teach, but actively take measures during athletic practice on hot humid days to prevent kids from overheating. That can mean practice in an air conditioned space, providing ice, ice vests, shifting practice to cooler mornings, etc
The military even does this while training. Soldiers, like children, will often ignore signs of heat exhaustion or dehydration. So they keep a stringent eye on wet bulb temps, and procedures. At heat cat 5 I think it was 15 minutes of work, and 45 rest of I remember right. He’ll in basic they made us drink a full cantine before lunch, and again before bed at the bare minimum.