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‘It happened so fast’: the shocking reality of indoor heat deaths in Arizona
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2025
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I’m pretty sure the extreme obesity was the cause of death
Contributing factor for sure, but not primary cause.
No, as "hateful" as it sounds... I'd say primary cause as well. Nothing stopped them from walking to their neighbors house and asking them if they could stick it out there for a bit since their A/C went out... Well... except for the walking part.
They had family coming and checking on him regularly. If he wasn't so fat that he couldn't get out of bed, he'd have just gone to their house... No? Clearly they cared. They installed a window A/C.
Inaction over the course of 2 days is was killed this man, the cause of inaction was his weight. His family obviously determined that they couldn't move him... and he couldn't move himself.
Edit: To the point, I also live in AZ. I have a really big solar install that lets me run my house off grid and islanded (with many hours of battery as well). I've told my neighbors they should come over during outages. People understand what A/C means here in this state. This family shouldn't have been blind-sided by the problem. It would have been his inability to get out of bed that limited options.
I don't want to get into it too much, but consider this analogy: let's say a person is tied to a chair wired with a bomb. The bomb explodes, and they die. What killed them? Personally, I'd say it was the bomb, not the rope or chair.
I reject the analogy. I've already stated the options any normal person would have had that would have kept them alive... and those options are quite simple of "walk to the neighbor's house".
Once again, I'm GOING to sound hateful, even though I harbor no actual hate (do what you want with your life... but there's consequences to everything). I speak this from a place of being overweight myself. You can't let it get to this point. I personally don't get the stupid signal from my stomach that I'm actually full. My brain tells me all the fucking time that I'm hungry even though I'm not. I get the problem though I've never been this far down the road myself.
It's even worse in this case as it's well understood that fat people hold heat longer. The fat acts as a literal barrier to shedding heat. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30454605/
With your argument... since being fat in of itself is never on a death certificate, it's impossible to die for being fat. It's always cardio issues, diabetes, kidney, or airway issues... That's nonsense. Those issues existed because of the persons obesity. Why would this situation be any different than the others?
Edit: Calling 911 would have also been an option once he started overheating... So I also have to wonder about the family members part of the situation. And his own inability to dial 3 digits on his phone as well.
Yeah, you do. Judgementalism is hateful.
How about you sit down and really consider your own fallibilities, weaknesses and self-centredness before pointing fingers at anyone else.
Since you apparently are unable to read, I'll repost this portion of my comment just for you.
I'm 100% aware of my own problems and am dealing with them.
I would highly suggest you work on your reading skills before pointing fingers of your own next time.
This is kind of a weak response that doesn't address any of the actual points made and yet itself judgementally points moral fingers around. Calling someone a bad (and non-self-aware?) person is not a good way to prove them wrong.
we need a goodwins law for hating on fat people because it is inevitable there’s gonna be at least one person who ‘harbors no actual hate’ but ‘insert stupid here’
That's quite interesting respond... The next part after "harbor no actual hate" is me talking about my own weight issues.
Apparently the qualifier of my own issues is "insert stupid here".
Are you actually going to add something to the discussion? Address any of the points? Or just be judgmental yourself?
self hate is often the root
the biggest homophobes I’ve ever met was a gay couple in Alabama
Right, got it.
And skip on both other options completely.
A person admitting that they recognize their own issues isn't automatically self-hate. I harbor no hate for myself. I recognize that my weight is a medical issue and that I need to control it. No part of my choice to actively recognize my issues is self-hate. However, I find your interest in categorizing MY feelings as quite disgusting behavior.
lmao how ever you want to frame it no one is buying it
I just want to point something out since it hasn't been said.
When it's so hot that your body is shutting down, you've already been well past the point of being able to think straight and make critical judgements.
Obesity aside, many people would fail to seek help not realizing they're in a life of death situation to begin with. You're so hot you must find yourself sitting or lying down unable to do jack shit. Need thing you know you're dying of heat stroke. And sadly, we're going to see this more and more as climate change kills more people.
Doesn't paint him in a very good picture. Morbidly obese and likes to play videogames with their 6 animals while his wife worked 3 jobs.
You should do a fortnite dance on his grave. That'll teach him.
I'll just stick the the ol Halo t bag.
Obviously not. The cause of death was overheating.
87F(~31C) at 100% humidity is enough that the human body can no longer cool itself. 95F(35C) at any humidity is the threshold where the human body can no longer cool itself.
100F indoors like that scenario, game over.
It's a sliding scale in that zone. Doesn't matter weight or not.
This isn't reddit, try harder.
Morbid obesity was the underlying cause of death
No one else died, honey. Immediate cause and underlying cause (root cause) are different, and important. If they had not been morbidly obese, they would not have died.
The death certificate likely includes both obesity and heat stroke.
Go back to whatever you came from.