Don’t Let Your Child Overheat!

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) -Savannah-Chatham County Public School System officials are taking extra precautions to keep high temperatures from becoming a health emergency for students now that summer break has ended.

With record high temperatures, hydration and rest breaks outside of the sun are the top priority to keep kids safe, according to the district.

“We are encouraging their kids to bring their water bottles stay hydrated and limiting outside time, if they do go outside no more than 15 minutes or 30 minutes and then they’ll spend the rest of recess in inside time just trying to keep them cool and safe,” said Sparkle Fields, lead district cluster nurse for SCCPSS.

When a student begins to feel the effects of heat, a school nurse can be one of the first lines of response.

That means keeping a close eye on symptoms or conditions throughout the day, such as dizziness, nausea, headaches or redness in the face, especially when students are active at PE, recess or extracurricular activities.

“So they started out with profuse sweating and feeling nauseous and dizzy so what do you wanna do is take them out of the heat try giving them some water to get their body temperature to go down. So for those symptoms, you don’t still need to call 911 but if it progress to unconsciousness or they stop sweating and then their temperature rises over 104 then we will call EMS,” said Brenda Sierzant, district cluster nurse for SCCPSS.

A heat emergency doesn’t just happen during PE class or recess. It can also occur during extracurricular activities.

“Keeping them inside when it’s too hot and following the GHA rules about football players, especially practicing with their pads on and then making sure they’re taking care of their athletes and keeping all of the water fountains open and then letting the kids go getting water whenever they need,” Sierzant said.

School officials are reminding parents to help their students come prepared with reusable water bottles so they can fill them up throughout the day, and to tell their kids to immediately let an adult know the moment they aren’t feeling well.