Visitors to Disneyland outside Sleeping Beauty Castle in Anaheim on September 3, 2021. (Photo credit: Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register/Getty Images/File via CNN Newsource)
About 7 a.m. last Sunday, he crossed the finish line in one hour, 56 minutes, then started clutching his chest. A volunteer grabbed him before he fell, Anaheim Police Sgt. Matt Sutter said. About an hour later, Graves, in full cardiac arrest, was pronounced dead at a hospital. The Orange County coroner’s office says it is investigating whether the heat or something else killed the young attorney.
Graves’ death may ultimately be part of a disturbing jump in the number of heat-related deaths, which have doubled across the country in recent years. Just this summer, the hottest on record for about 100 US cities from Maine to California, heat contributed to the deaths of four children who were left in cars in Arizona, Georgia and Nebraska. Another child, a 10-year-old, died of a “heat-related medical event” in July while hiking in an Arizona park. In California’s Death Valley, a motorcyclist died on July 6 from heat exposure on a day the temperature climbed to a record 128 degrees.
“It is troubling that this has not been more top of mind, which could partially be explained by the fact that the increasing trends in heat related deaths have not been clearly identified until now,” said Jeffrey Howard, the lead author of a new study that found a 117% spike in heat-related fatalities over the last 24 years, with at least 21,518 people dying in the US in that time.
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