Keep your cool

TAMPA - Spend any time outdoors and you know it's scorching hot.

"The humidity is really the worst part, I think," said James Engel, a 19-year-old college student.
He says it's not helping his tennis game either.

"I didn't know it was this hot, but you definitely feel it after a few games," said his friend, Brandon Oakes, a USF student.

The extreme heat isn't just uncomfortable, it's dangerous, too. With soaring temperatures and the heat index over 100, it doesn't take much to get into trouble.

"I've been here all my life and I've never seen it this hot," says Dr. Robert Cano, with University Community Hospital.

Emergency room doctors at University Community Hospital say they are slammed. More than a dozen people have been treated for heat exhaustion in the last few days, and the summer is just getting started.

"People in Florida don't realize it. We're here all our lives. We get used to the heat. We think it's no big deal but it is very easy to be dehydrated. It doesn't take a lot." says Dr. Cano.

Doctors say the symptoms can come on quickly: nausea, vomiting, headaches, dizziness.
The key: limit your time outside, drink lots of water and stay cool. But spending the day at the pool doesn't mean you're not at risk. Doctors treated people who'd spent the day at water parks, too.

"Everybody's out there playing, having a good time but in this heat even though your in the water you are going to sweat, and you don't think about it because you're wet and you're staying nice and cool. But with the humidity the way it is right now, you're still going to have to drink, drink, drink," says Jamie Prevatt, a registered nurse at UCH.

That's exactly what James Engle and his friend are doing. They brought a couple gallons of water to keep them going.

"At least it's breezy out. That's the one thing. We'd be dying without that. It would probably be unbearable without the breeze actually," Engel said.