CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (WSIL) -- Health officials are offering tips this week on how to stay safe amid .
This comes after a Cape Girardeau homeless man died from last month. Last week, the Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri held a memorial to recognize Smith. Outreach worker Breita Church says Smith was 'an absolute joy.'
"[J]ust walking into a room, [he] would light up the room and everyone in it," Church said.
Church says she spotted Smith walking Independence Street during the afternoon hours of July 24. At the time, temperatures soared to 92 degrees. Anyone can fall victim to heat related events, especially the very young and very old says Bobbi Palmer, a family nurse practitioner at Cape Primary Care.
Along with staying hydrated, Palmer says listening to your body and taking action early could potentially save your life. if you feel weakness, muscle cramps or an elevated heart rate, Palmer suggests sitting down and resting.
"Heat exhaustion can happen to anyone," Palmer said. "It's just a matter of feeding the warning signs as opposed to ignoring them thinking that 'this won't happen to me'".
But it happened to Smith and thousands of others. From 2004 to 2018, more than 10,000 people suffered heat-related deaths according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than a third of deaths were of people ages 45 to 64. Smith was 50 years old.
Palmer says the best chances for the homeless to escape the dangerous heat is to seek community resources.
"A shelter that might be open during the daytime hours, particularly from 11am to 12pm or 3pm to 4pm," Palmer said. "Those would be critical times when the heat index turns out to be the highest."
But Church says the partnership is only open during limited hours Monday through Thursday. She says organizers are working to change that and hope to gain more help.
"We need responsible volunteers that can help us on the weekends and so forth," Church said. "If we could just stay open during the day for a few hours it would help a lot of people."
To volunteer, you can call the Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri at (573) 651-3747.
