According to the article, “Heat-Related Illness, from the Luke Air Force Base website “...all heat-related deaths and illnesses are preventable, each year an average of about 658 people succumb to extreme heat.” Heat stroke has been plaguing people and athletes of outdoor sports teams and can be scary, not to mention life-threatening. If a player were to suffer from heatstroke during a football game, they would not have enough time to transport them to a shaded location to cool them down. Recently, Akron Children’s Hospital has recognized this issue and given a grant to local schools, so they can buy a Polar Life Pod. Lowellville School has one Polar Life Pod and students were able to test out how it works.
The Polar Life Pod is like a bag which can cover an athlete in order to help the athlete cool down and prevent heatstroke. The Polar Life Pod can hold anyone up to 400 pounds and seven feet tall. In order to assist the athlete needing the Pod several people, at least four to five, would be needed to help but six or seven people would be best. Some would have to move the athlete into the Pod while the others pour anywhere from 40 to 80 gallons of ice water into the Pod. To make sure their body temperature is dropping properly the athlete’s vitals need to be checked every 3-5 minutes. As athletic trainer Luke Olesky said, “The only drawbacks are that you have to have the ice water on site and have enough people around to help you. This is something you can’t do alone”.
Mathew Lucido, a junior, and a member of the Lowellville High School football team, tested it out. He said, “I think it will be very useful to have on the sidelines. It will definitely help because it gets pretty cold in there, but it is actually pretty comfortable.”
Our school nurse, Betsy Wilson, said, “I think it is a great idea to have the Polar Life Pod because it’s right there on site.” The Polar Life Pod will soon start benefiting many other outside sports like, cross country, track and field.