Avoiding exhaustion a hot topic in valley

Only mad dogs, Englishmen, mail carriers and a determined golfer will go out in the noonday sun of the Las Vegas Valley, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling.

Mail carriers and golfers are feeling the heat, but they continue to make the rounds and hit the greens.

Three mail carriers have succumbed to heat exhaustion while making their deliveries this summer, U.S. Postal Service spokesman Vic Fenimore said.

"We make our people aware of the dangers that come with the heat," Fenimore said. "We have 1,000 carriers in Las Vegas, and we encourage drinking water and carrying wet towels on rounds."

The same precautions are often followed by golfers putting in their own rounds.

To be sure, heat has had an impact on golfing at some of the courses around the valley, but the die-hard duffers still are out there in great numbers, considering the intensity of the heat.

But most of those who choose not to stay at home are avoiding the heat of the day -- the tee times are bunched early in the morning and late in the afternoon, according to several course managers.

Tate Stull, with Badlands Golf and Country Club, said the number of golfers is down because of the heat, "but we offer a rate that they can't refuse."

Many golfers think a cheap greens fee is pretty cool, so they load up with water and ignore the heat.

"They come well-prepared," Stull said. "And we offer plenty of wet towels."

Being well prepared is the message Fenimore hopes his postal carriers take away from today's American Medical Response seminars at postal substations across the valley.

"This is the first time we've worked with AMR, and it looks like it is going to be a great help," Fenimore said.

AMR will brief mail carriers on precautions they can take to avoid heat-related illness. These include drinking water at a steady pace throughout the day and staying away from alcohol and drinks with caffeine.

"A good thing to do is to put a water bottle in the freezer the night before and then take it into work frozen," said Chris McNamara, AMR spokesman. "That way they drink slowly and continuously, which hydrates the body.

"Alcohol and caffeine speed up the body's metabolism, pushing the water out of the body by turning it into urine."

The danger of heat stroke for mail carriers and golfers is great because of the tendency for them to get involved in what they are doing and forget to get enough water, McNamara said.

"You have to remember that in Nevada we are dealing with a low level of humidity, and that means heat stroke can creep up on you more easily," McNamara said. "In high-humidity areas like New Orleans, people have a hard time sweating and cooling their bodies off, which leads to more heat cramps and other warning signs."

Despite the increased heat, the Las Vegas Golf Club has not lowered its prices to attract golfers.

"A lot of golf courses across the valley do that just to keep the greens in play," Assistant General Manager Jon Anderson said.

What the Las Vegas Golf Club has to lure golfers away from their air conditioners is a renovated course that re-opened Saturday after being closed for almost three months.

But still, business is down. Anderson said perhaps 120 people used the course Sunday, when the normal number last year was between 200 and 300.

Anderson said some of the drop-off is because of the weather and some is because of the closing of the course for so long. Many people have not learned that the municipal course is again open.

"From the feedback we're getting, the response to the changes are all good," Anderson said, "but we would love to have more golfers."

Among the valley's die-hard golfers are UNLV students Lance Jerrell, 22, and Carsten Rode, 23. They say the heat has an effect on them, but not one that would make them quit playing golf at least once a week.

"We were all right the first nine holes," Jerrell said Sunday, "but once we hit the back nine we could feel it."

They brought a lot of water as a precaution and drank it all before finishing the front nine.

"If you need to guzzle water, then you're already too late," McNamara said. "Guzzling will just get your kidneys working faster, and you won't get hydrated."

The temperature forces golfers to play more slowly but causes the golf balls to travel farther because of the thin air that comes with the heat, Anderson said.

Lonnie Beamon likes the distance factor.

He plays several times a week and on Sunday shot a 76 on the par-72 course.

Beamon, who is in the medical profession, advises golfers not to rush their game and to drink lots of water.

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