Arizona's legislator to check changes according to the ABC15 -Heat

Phoenix-a legislator in Arizona is considering a possible review or a possible task force to see how many cases of deaths in connection with heat residents may not be targeted.

Senator Analise Ortiz said that there should be a second look at the count of deaths that could be heating.

“After seeing their reporting, I have the feeling that we were lied about how bad it is when it comes to heat deaths,” said Ortiz, a democrat who represents Glendal and Maryvale.

This follows ABC15 examination Where Proponents and experts question whether Maricopa County often excludes potential deaths in connection with heat -resistant statements.

“Your reporting will definitely take me into account next year,” said Ortiz, “we can look at the governor's resilience to determine whether you might be able to set up a kind of second review body. Even the Ministry of Health Services could set up a kind of task force.”

Ortiz said she planned to meet the Arizona Department of Health Services in the coming weeks.

“Get used to the heat”

ABC15 found a case in June last June in which a man who experienced homelessness was found dead on a sidewalk in Phoenix.

The temperatures reached a record high of 113 degrees on this day.

A medical examiner from the Maricopa County medical examination office dismissed a warmth and wrote in a death report: “Environmental heat exposure was not maintained as the cause of death because he got used to the heat and the temperature for this day was 108 degrees.”

His official cause of death was listed as “acute kidney failure due to the azotemia in front”.

There were no illegal drugs in his toxicological reports.

No body temperature

Another death was dismissed as a heat -related death, since a medical examiner said that a body temperature was not available in the records.

According to County Records, a man was no longer reacted outside the Phoenix Colosseum. In a preliminary death examination, officials wrote that the 65-year-old may have worked outside when he overheated and fell, but his body temperature was not found on site or in the hospital.

He died in a hospital.

His cause of death was listed as a “hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases” with “diabetes mellitus and obesity” as a contributable cause.

Not counted as warmth deaths

The ABC15 investigators checked hundreds of death files and found at least 50 cases that raise serious questions, including the question of whether heat is too often rejected as the cause of death.

Including these cases:

• A 72-year-old man from Arizona who died days after falling on a sidewalk last year, with the hot surface burned 16% of his body.

An official of the medical examination office in Maricopa County listed his cause of death as “complications of thermal injuries” because it was exposed to longer exposure to increased environmental temperatures on a hot surface.

But his death was not counted as the heat death.

In another case, ABC15 found a medical examiner who contributed to the death of a man in July 2024 because he was covered with a blanket, which is not what you would expect in a hot environment.

The medical examiner wrote: “He also had a credit card, a protective ID and bus passes with which he could have escaped hot environmental temperatures.”

• The 29-year-old was found dead on a park in Van Buren Street. Officials listed that drugs contributed to his death.

Count warm deaths in Arizona

Throughout the state, medical examination offices use different criteria to determine thermal -related or heat -touched deaths.

A spokesman for the Arizona Department of Health Services said that the department is carrying out reviews of records before he is reported on the nationwide deaths in connection with heat -related and heat -cloudy.

The department said in an e -mail:

“The nuances of data reporting are an ongoing topic of conversation with the stakeholders in local communities, and reaching the consensus via the reporting standards is a priority for the agency.”

The statement Also said that the Chief Heat Officer of ADHD works with local jurisdiction for a common understanding and a common data acquisition procedure in order to ensure consistent and precise reporting in order to refine the view of the effects of warmth on mortality in Arizona. “

Detail in a decade

According to Maricopa County, 2024 was the first time in a decade when the deaths were related to heat.

There were 37 less heat -related deaths in 2024 than in 2023 when a record of 645 people died in Maricopa County.

The leaders of the city and the district used the decline in the heat death figures to show that the strategies they take function.

“Through successful political design and thanks to the leadership of Mayor Gallego, we were able to determine a significant reduction in deaths in connection with heat”.

At a city council meeting in March, the mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, also promotes that there were fewer heat deaths: “The number of people who have lost their lives is still much too high, but the curve has not taken place by chance. This shows that the provision of a coordinated thorough response to extreme heat can save today.”

At the beginning of this year, the leaders of Maricopa County have a press release entitled “2024 shows the first decline in heat deaths in a decade.”

The state's first Chief Heat Officer, Dr. Eugene Livar, At a press conference in May, he also praised a decline in deaths in connection with the heat. “The preliminary data show that 2024 in the first summer in six years will be up to date that Arizona has not recorded the number of heat deaths into an exponential increase. We hope that this positive performance will lead to long-term improvements over time.”

The Supervisor Board by Maricopa County, Thomas Galvin, announced ABC15 that he had not seen our investigations, but replied at the beginning of this week that he was proud of the employees who work in the office of the medical examiner.

“It's a very difficult job,” he said. “I know that the county publishes an explanation in which it identifies and explains how we deal with deaths. Warmth deaths are a very serious problem for us.”

“Why are you not?”

ABC15 Shared Medical Examiner Reports, Toxicology Reports and Preliminary Investigation Reports with Experts, Lawyers and Researchers.

An associate professor from Texas, who examines mortality, checked some of the cases ABC15 that were not counted as heat -related people.

“The main question is, why are you not?” Said Dr. Jeffrey Howard from College for Health, Community and Politics at the University of Texas in San Antonio.

“It is certainly the question of why these reports are not as heat -related information in these reports that they are heated,” he said.

Answer by Maricopa County:

The Maricopa County's medical examiner rejected a second interview this week after the examination of ABC15 was broadcast.

In an e -mail, a spokesman said that the district had not commented on this story.

In an earlier explanation, a spokesman for the district said that the office of the medical examiner was “a national model for the strict examination and evaluation of heat deaths”.

The office added that forensic pathologists apply their best medical judgment.

“Heat -related deaths are those in which the best medical judgment of the forensic pathologist either causes exposure to high environmental heat either causes death or contributes to death,” says a statement.

A spokesman for the district also said that the Ministry of Public Health of Maricopa County “consistently messages that its heat monitoring is not responsible for every death or the disease in the district in the district”.

ABC15 asked the district how its methodology is to count warm deaths, but The district spokesman did not answer this question.

City of Phoenix answers

The ABC15 investigators turned to the city of Phoenix because the heads of state Maricopa County used data to raise awareness of heating.

Mayor Kate Gallego's office did not answer the question of ABC15 whether the mayor is concerned that heat is excluded during some death examinations. Also, she also did not answer whether she would support a review body to think about heat -related deaths to determine whether cases are not shown.

In an explanation in her office said: “Every year we expanded our network of heat brielen centers, including locations for a longer hour and overnight, paired with outreach teams and wrap-around support for population groups in need of protection.”

The explanation also states that the city is dependent on several indicators in the implementation of heat safety strategies, including the Department of Public Health of Maricopa, together with the number and the locations of calls for public safety civilization in the Maricopa district.

“When pursuing the effectiveness of our interventions, we also consider location-specific data in our cooling and hydration centers, including the number of people associated with services and successfully switch to living space,” the explanation says.