About 300 people, most of them Boy Scouts, were sickened by the heat while waiting for US President George W. Bush to arrive at a memorial service for four Scout leaders who were killed while pitching a tent beneath a power line.
The president's visit to the Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill was postponed because of severe thunderstorms and strong wind. Instead, Bush is scheduled to visit the gathering today.
But before the president's appearance was called off, many Scouts fell ill from temperatures that rose into the mid 30s Celsius, made worse by high humidity.
Half of those were treated at the base hospital, about 5km from the event arena, and released. Dozens more were sent to other hospitals, where they were in stable condition Wednesday night, said Gregg Shields, a Jamboree spokesman.
Soldiers carried Boy Scouts on stretchers to the base hospital, and others were airlifted from the event.
Jamboree officials called for emergency help from surrounding areas, and ambulances transported Scouts during the storm, which brought high winds and lightning.
Jamboree spokeswoman Renee Fairrer said she was not sure if any of the illnesses were serious.
"If there are any, I haven't heard about them yet," Fairrer said.
Hours earlier, Scouts began gathering for the event, passing through security screening to get a place in an open field facing the stage where the president planned to speak.
Scout leaders distributed water by the caseload, and the Scouts were told they could remove their uniform shirts if they had another shirt underneath.
"This is hot for me," said Chad McDowell, 16, who lives in Warrenton, Oregon. "Where I'm from if it's 75[?F, 24?C], we think that it's a heat wave."
Those who fell ill suffered from dehydration, lightheadedness and fatigue, among other symptoms.
The gathering has drawn more than 40,000 Scouting enthusiasts from around the world to the fort about an hour south of the nation's capital.
The memorial service had been planned to honor four Scout leaders from Anchorage, Alaska, who were electrocuted Monday while pitching a dining tent at the Jamboree.
On Wednesday, a spokesman said the group had ignored scouting teachings by putting the tent under a power line.
The Scout leaders also had taken the "somewhat unusual" step of hiring a contractor to help with the task, Scouts spokesman Gregg Shields said.
"Boy Scouts are taught not to put their tents under trees or under power lines. I don't know what happened in that case," Shields said.
Some Scouts witnessed the deaths of the leaders as the large pole at the center of a large, white dining tent came into contact with power lines. Screams rang out as the tent caught fire and the men burned.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
RSS