HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) – The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office has confirmed the area’s first heat-related death. The family of 67-year-old Victor Ramos said they never imagined he would be a victim of the heat and want to raise awareness of the dangers.
The video above is from ABC13’s Live Streaming Channel.
Karla Ramos told ABC13 reporter Lileana Pearson her brother grew up in California and spent his life working in hot warehouses, so she never imagined her brother would die from the heat inside his own home.
PREVIOUS REPORT: N. Houston woman found unresponsive in car was Harris Co.'s 1st heat-related death in 2022
That day before Karla Ramos called 911 for her brother, she said he had made a few complaints.
“He told me that Friday, the 23rd, ‘I’m not feeling good. I’m feeling kind of tired,’” Karla said.
She encouraged him to take a cool shower and lie down.
“I went back at nine on Saturday morning, and he was gone. I found him with a bunch of saliva on the side, so I knew something was wrong,” Karla said.
On June 24, Karla called 911, and Victor was taken to the hospital but pronounced dead. The Harris County medical examiner confirmed it was the first heat-related death in the county.
RELATED: How extreme heat takes a toll on the mind and body, according to experts
“When I found him Saturday morning, it was mind-blowing because I never expected him not to have survived this,” Karla said.
The medical examiner’s office said Victor was in a house without air conditioning.
His sister said they knew the AC was out and had been working on it in the days leading up to his death.
Karla said she recently lost a sister and her mother and said this blow adds weight to her shoulders as she also cares for her sick father.
But she wants people to know a heat-related death can happen to anyone.
“If you have family help them out. If you can’t help them fix the AC, get some fans. $40 isn’t going to make you go broke,” Karla said.
On Friday, in Richmond, law enforcement confirmed that a 6-year-old boy died after being found unresponsive inside a family vehicle after his family noticed he was missing.
SEE REPORT HERE: Richmond police investigate 6-year-old boy’s death after he’s found inside family vehicle
Officials told ABC13 that the vehicle was off and hot when the child was found.
https://abc13.com/heat-related-death-excessive-heat-houston-weather-severe-in/13508211/
I live near Houston so I get how once you get past a certain point you don’t notice how hot you actually are (like with cold, once you get cold enough you quit shivering) but if your AC is out in this kind of weather you need to frequently hop in the shower to cool off.
Sweat will not keep you cool in or around Houston because it’s nearly 100% humidity. We’ve had basically straight wind off the Gulf through all this heat.
Also (unfortunately) swamp coolers do not work here either. You’d basically just get a hot mist.
In case anyone else is confused - the “previous report” section is an ad to another article, totally unrelated
He was 67. He shouldn’t have needed a job to afford the basic necessity of AC in Texas. This could have so easily been avoided if our system wasn’t designed to extract every possible scrap of value out of people.
