US Couple Dies From Heat Exhaustion
When police arrived, they found the couple — and their pet bird — dead inside the home — with all windows shut and doors locked.
“The temperature check by our crime scene unit showed it to be somewhere in the area of 108-to-109-degrees inside.”
Sergeant Larry Nelson says the couple could have died days ago — at the peak of the heat wave. The last time a family member had spoken to them, he says, was on July first — when the temperature was a record-breaking 105-degrees.
“The officers standing outside, they could hear the air conditioner click on but the outside fan never came on, which indicates to us the air conditioning wasn’t working.”
Sergeant Nelson says the couple had two cars and a working telephone, but never called anyone or asked any neighbors for help.
“They never bothered anybody. It was just an elderly couple and they just kept to themselves.”
Frightening, also, to consider how easily this could happen to anyone in a somewhat vulnerable condition - air conditioning stops working, person gets disoriented due to heat, can’t think clearly, can’t call for help…and when this type of heat wave becomes commonplace, how many more times will scenarios like this be repeated?