Alabama Department of Transportation worker speaks of heat exhaustion experience during week of dangerously high temperatures

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WBRC) – A WBRC On Your Side Safety Check during First Alert Weather Days as we are working to help keep you safe in this heat.

Doctors say when it’s hot like this, it’s dangerous and can even be deadly.

The heat is really on in Alabama, and it’s the kind of heat that cares not one bit who you are, what you do for a living, or where you’re from. Jerrell Bowden learned that the hard way.

“It felt really weird.. Like my whole body went like.. Kind of stopped,” said Jerrell Bowden, who works for the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT).

Bowden remembers it all too well, a case of heat exhaustion. It happened four years ago on the job during a period of stifling heat. Bowden, who works in ALDOT’s transportation and technology division, often works on the traffic signal team that replaces bulbs or new signage.

“My whole body just kind of sit down. I literally could not walk up four steps. I had to sit down and stop and one of the aides out there said ‘You don’t look good. Let me get you some water’,” said Bowden.

Within 15 minutes, Bowden says he began to feel like himself again.

UAB emergency physician Dr. Jeron Raper says this is the very thing he warns people about when the temperatures rise matched with suffocating humidity.

“Folks, think of heat exhaustion and heat exposure. It’s really a broad spectrum of disease. You can have heat stroke, which is really on the far end, and those are really sick patients that have evidence of changes in their mental status.. they’re confused, they may not be behaving normally,” said Dr. Raper.

It never got to that dangerous level for Bowden, but it scared him enough that he no longer short-changes the weather or pretends he can handle it. Bowden admitted he made a potentially deadly mistake on that job site four years ago.

“Next thing I knew.. Everything was locking up. What do I do with this,” said Bowden.

Today, Bowden has seen the light. He says part of his daily intake is water and a Squincher Squeenze for hydration.

“Yes, sir we have plenty of Gatorade and plenty of water,” said Bowden.

Bowden was among the lucky ones. According to Dr. Raper, anywhere from 700 to 1,500 die every year in the country from heat-related illnesses.

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