CARBONDALE, Ill (WSIL) -- Some Carbondale student athletes won't practice Thursday night because of the heat.
Coaches are still busy going over what they know about heat related illnesses.
At Carbondale Community High School's Coaches meeting Thursday, an athletic trainer spoke on the subject of athlete wellness. On that topic, of course, was Thursday's heat.
"Looking at Dehydration, that can also lead to muscle cramping, and then we can get into heat illness, heat exhaustion."
Sarah Brumley, the head athletic trainer at Carbondale High School, passed along potentially lifesaving information to coaches who will often be the first to respond in a case of heat related illness.
"What we're going to focus on later is where you get into heat stroke where you actually pass out due to heat and your core body temperature ends up rising which can be deadly in an emergency situation."
Part of the presentation is a new technique to help lower body temperature.
"Cold water immursion that's easy, that they can do to try to get the core temperature down as the ambulance is in route," says Brumley.
This comes on a day where Tennis Coach Michael Butler canceled practice given the conditions.
"Cancelled practice today due to the fact is we hit that humidity level, that heat level where it becomes a situation where if we push too hard, we could be on the precipice of an injury or possibly a heat exhaustion moment which no one wants to have especially because right now we're still in pre-season training. Pre season is much different from when you attack the season as a whole."
Coach Butler says no one likes missing practice, but he plans a day or two of these in every year, to keep his players safe.
