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Soaring Temperatures in N.Y.C. Land More Than 100 in Emergency Rooms
Soaring temperatures sent more than 100 people to emergency rooms in New York City for heat-related illnesses on Tuesday, the hottest day in more than a decade, according to data from city health officials.
The temperature on Tuesday reached a sweltering 99 degrees at Belvedere Castle in Central Park, where the city's official weather station is. A thermometer there last reached that temperature in 2012.
It was hotter elsewhere in the city, reaching 102 degrees at Kennedy International Airport in Queens, marking the hottest June day at the airport since its opening in 1948.
On Tuesday, the City Health Department logged 112 visits to hospital emergency rooms related to the heat, the most in a single day since July 20, 2019, when a heat wave also sent 112 patients to E.R.s for heat-related illness. The condition includes heat exhaustion, muscle cramps, fainting and, most seriously, heat stroke, according to the Health Department.
Monday, another steamy day, also saw an unusual number of heat-sickened patients turn up at hospitals in the city: 70.
A spokeswoman for the City Health Department said no information was available on whether any New Yorkers died from heat stroke on Tuesday.
In the last five years, there have been only three days when more than 50 patients were brought to E.R.s because of the heat, excluding this week.
On average, five people die from heat stroke each year in New York City. Those deaths are directly blamed on the heat.
From 2014 to 2023, about 45 percent of the people who died from heat stroke were at home — and their homes typically lacked air-conditioning. A comparable share of heat-related deaths involved people who suffered heat stroke while outside. Seven percent involved people in parked cars, and a single death came from exposure to heat on a subway platform.
Nearly 15 percent of people who died from heat stroke were homeless, according to the city's most recent Heat-Related Mortality Report.
While deaths directly attributable to the heat receive the most attention, the heat is indirectly responsible for about 520 premature deaths each year by exacerbating heart disease or another chronic condition, according to the City Health Department.
Citywide, about 89 percent of homes have air conditioning. But in some neighborhoods the rate is lower, closer to 80 percent, according to a report by the city comptroller.
