Streets Are Getting So Hot They Are Causing Serious Burns

David Villela stepped barefoot into the 110-degree Las Vegas heat in June for just a couple of minutes. When he got back inside from closing his gate, his left foot felt like it was on fire. 

He plunged it into a bucket of cold water. A huge blister formed on the sole, then burst, leaking fluid and blood. Villela, 37 years old, was taken to University Medical Center of Southern Nevada, where a burn specialist diagnosed a third-degree burn that would require several surgeries and a skin graft. 

Streets in the Southwest are so hot that some people who touch them even briefly are getting serious burns. Villela is among scores of patients injured in the U.S. this year by touching surfaces that are baking under the bright sun and record temperatures. Burn centers in the Southwest are reporting a rise in injuries to people who touch hot door handles, walk barefoot on scorching surfaces or fall on sun-scorched pavement. 

“We call it pavement burn season,” said Dr. Syed Saquib, medical director of the UMC Lions Burn Care Center in Las Vegas and one of Villela’s doctors.

Pavement burns are among the most severe injuries he sees, often resulting in worse injuries than exposure to flames, boiling water or chemicals. About a third of patients in his 16-bed unit are being treated for burns from pavement, which can heat up to around 170 degrees on a hot day, he said. 

Pavement burns are riskiest to people who can’t get up immediately after falling on the hot ground, doctors said, such as elderly people who might faint from dehydration. Patients with conditions that cause loss of feeling in their feet are also at risk, they said.

People should stay indoors on hot days if they can and wear shoes, socks and a hat before going out. They should drink plenty of water and let people know where they will be, doctors said.

Villela was in the hospital for two weeks, undergoing surgeries in which doctors removed dead tissue from his foot. He was discharged in late June but returned to the hospital in early July because his wound wasn’t healing properly.

He has been there ever since, undergoing additional surgeries and wound therapy. In a few weeks, when more tissue has grown back, he will get a skin graft. 

“I’m looking to make a full recovery and keep living a normal life,” he said. 

It could take another month or so for Villela to fully heal, Saquib said. Villela, who has Type 1 diabetes, might not have felt his left foot burning until it was too late, his doctor said. Villela had his right leg amputated earlier this year because of complications from diabetes.

Johnny Sandoval, 37, was taking a smoke break outside Phoenix City Hall on a blistering day in May when he had a seizure and fell onto a metal plate. By the time security personnel found him, he had suffered third-degree burns on his left arm and right hand.

He was admitted to the ICU at Valleywise Health Medical Center. A few days later, surgeons at the Arizona Burn Center at Valleywise removed dead tissue from his arm and hand and took skin from his right thigh to graft over the wounds. 

Sandoval said he was given oxycodone and fentanyl to control the pain of the burns, but nothing prepared him for the excruciating bandage changes on each of the six days he was recovering in the hospital. 

“It literally felt like someone was peeling my skin off of me every time,” he said. 

He began having panic attacks before each bandage change. His doctors prescribed an antianxiety medication. He learned to change his own bandages at home. 

He sees a physical therapist twice a week, working to regain the full range of motion in his arm and hand. He wears long sleeves and a glove when he goes outside to protect his scarred skin from sunburns he can’t feel. He is also taking anti-seizure medications to prevent falling again. 

The Arizona Burn Center has hospitalized around 50 patients with heat-related contact burns this summer, said Dr. Kevin Foster, the center’s director. Two have died. Last year 85 patients were hospitalized at the center for contact-burn injuries in June, July and August. Seven died. 

Many patients are elderly people who fall onto hot concrete and can’t get up, Foster said. He and his staff have also seen people with substance-use disorder who passed out and ended up on the hot ground for hours. The center often treats people for symptoms of heat-related illness on top of the burns, he said.  

“It’s worse than any other summer I’ve seen,” he said.

Write to Sarah Toy at [email protected]