The Sun Can Cause Severe Burns Even in Late Summer, So Take Precautions

Here’s a story that provides more than one lesson in why you need to protect yourself with the best sunblock to avoid severe burns as you enjoy the late-summer sun.

In Texas, a man was hospitalized with second-degree burns when he fell asleep while outside in the sun without his shirt on. Police say it is likely that the man was intoxicated by alcohol or another substance, which is why the pain from his sunburn did not wake him up. And when he did finally wake up, his pain was so severe that he jumped into the lake next to the pier he was sunbathing on–and then had to be rescued!

Police officers were initially called by someone who saw the burning man on the pier, but by the time police arrived the man had jumped into the water. The police notified the local EMS/ambulance service, and that team successfully pulled the victim from the water. But they immediately noticed the severity of the victim’s burns, which included blisters all over his body from the 100-degree heat.

“Sunburn doesn’t normally rise to this magnitude because people tend to remove themselves from that environment before such burns happen,” said an EMS spokesperson. In fact, he described the severity of the burns to what paramedics normally see during house fires and car fires.

But “it was clear that something else was going on with the victim. His sunburn was the clear consequence of other behavior.”

So before you skip using the sunblock because we are now in September and the sun does not seem as strong as it was a few weeks ago, take this advice: Use sunblock anyway! The sun is still strong enough to burn your skin.

Lastly, do not drink alcohol or take controlled substances and then go into the sun. Taking intoxicating substances not only makes you less aware of how much sunburn you are getting, but it also could cause you to pass out while in the sun. And you surely don’t want to end up with severe burns like the man in the story above, do you?