Anita Bazell had never coped with the heat very well, her family said. So they were worried about her when temperatures across the UK soared to record highs of 35C (95F) in May, and then again in June. She was living in a nursing home in Southampton near her family, who had struggled to care for her at home due to her declining mobility.
Although there were air conditioning units in the communal rooms, there was not one in Anita’s room, which was on the third floor. Heat rises and she was on the top floor, and the windows were open as far as the restrictors would let them go,” said her son, Steve Bazell. It was so hot you couldn’t sleep at night around here back then.” The first phone call came on 25 June – Steve was told his mother was feeling unwell and she was being taken to bed.
It was actually the second of three days that week when the temperature record for June was broken. The next phone call, just after 9am the following day, was a shock. Paramedics called to say his mother had been found unresponsive and was being taken to Southampton general hospital.
The family were urged to get there as soon as possible – medics were not sure she would make it to the hospital. When they arrived, Anita’s face looked drooped on one side and they thought she had suffered a stroke. Doctors were putting towels soaked in ice water on her, replacing them every few minutes.
The family were soon told she had been diagnosed with heatstroke, which had caused a bleed on the brain. When she arrived in hospital, she had a body temperature of 41.2C – anything above 40C is considered a medical emergency. I mean, my mum was 88, but she was mentally fine.
We couldn’t understand how this had happened – did they check on her?” Anita was hospitalised on 26 June, which was then the hottest June day on record in the UK with 38C recorded at Lingwood in Norfolk, breaking the previous record of 35.6 degrees set in Southampton 50 years earlier. It was the fifth hottest day in the UK ever. Steve was told Anita was one of at least seven elderly people taken to Southampton general hospital with heatstroke that day, and some did not make it there before they died.
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