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Heat exhaustion and heatstroke

Name: Heat exhaustion and heatstroke
Published: 2026-07-26

Verificado 2026-07-26

Utilização por sua conta e risco. Material educativo e de investigação, não substitui o médico. Verifique os números e as regras do país onde está. Eles mudam. Antes de confiar nestas fichas na prática, reveja-as com um profissional de saúde ou um especialista em segurança contra incêndios. Aviso

Esta ficha ainda não está traduzida, por isso o texto abaixo está em inglês. Os números de emergência e as notas legais desta página já são os locais.

Faça já isto

Get the person out of the heat, lay them down, cool them with water and moving air, and give sips of water if they are fully awake.

Heat kills in two stages. Heat exhaustion, pale, sweaty, weak and sick, still responds to shade, water and rest. Heatstroke, hot skin and a confused or unconscious brain, is an emergency where every minute of cooling decides the damage.

Passo a passo

Move them to shade or a cool room, lay them down and raise the legs slightly.
Strip off excess clothing and cool the skin: spray or sponge with water and fan them, cold packs wrapped in cloth to neck, armpits and groin.
If they are fully awake, give water or a sports drink in steady sips, not litres at once.
Reassess after thirty minutes. Heat exhaustion should clearly improve. If it does not, treat it as heatstroke and call 112.
Heatstroke, meaning hot skin with confusion, staggering, seizure or fading consciousness: call 112 immediately and say heatstroke.
Cool aggressively while you wait: the fastest safe method available, immersion in cool water up to the neck for a fit young person, or continuous water plus fanning for everyone else.
If they become unresponsive but breathe normally, recovery position, keep cooling, and monitor the breathing.

Nunca faça isto

Never give anything to drink to someone confused or drowsy. It will end in the lungs, not the stomach.
Never give fever medicines like paracetamol or ibuprofen for heatstroke. This is not a fever, and they do not help, they load the liver and kidneys.
Never leave anyone, child or adult or animal, in a parked car, and never assume a heatstroke victim can rest it off. The clock is running.

Ligue para a emergência se

Hot skin together with confusion, strange behaviour, staggering, seizure or fainting.
Symptoms that do not clearly improve within thirty minutes of shade, cooling and fluids.
Heat illness in a child, an older person, or anyone with heart disease or on regular medication.

Perguntas frequentes

How do I tell exhaustion from heatstroke?

Look at the brain, not the sweat. Exhausted people are miserable but make sense. Heatstroke changes the person: confusion, aggression, staggering, collapse. Sweating can still be present in heatstroke, so its absence proves nothing.

How do I avoid it on a hot day?

Drink before you are thirsty, shift work and sport to morning and evening, wear a hat and light clothing, and check on older neighbours daily. Most heat deaths are people alone in hot flats, not hikers.