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news
Cyclist died after collapsing in Little Aston during heatwave (image supplied)Cyclist died after collapsing during heatwave
A cyclist in his 70s died after collapsing in the midday heat near Little Aston, in Staffordshire, on Monday.
A road.cc reader, who happened to pass the scene at the time of the emergency, reported seeing bystanders performing CPR on the man at around 11.40am, shortly after West Midlands Ambulance and Midlands Air Ambulance had been called to the scene.
Staffordshire Police sadly confirmed that the cyclist was pronounced dead by medics as the force's officers were called to join the response, at the junction of Keepers Lane on the Roman Road, at 12.12pm.
The death is not being treated as suspicious and has been referred to the coroner. Emergency service reports said the rider had collapsed in the midday heat.
Temperatures in Little Aston peaked at 37°C on Monday as the Met Office issued its first-ever 'Red Warning' for extreme heat in England.
"I saw some bystanders performing CPR on the cyclist around 11.40. It didn't look good," the road.cc reader told us.
"Then an ambulance arrived followed by a second and then the air ambulance arrived. Shortly after Staffordshire Police arrived, at least four or five police cars, so they were taking it very seriously and closed the road for a number of hours.
"It's so tragic as the emergency services were excellent, arriving promptly and sending a lot of resources to try to save the man.
"Everything possible was done by them: West Midlands Ambulance, the Midlands Air Ambulance, Staffordshire Police and the bystanders, which included BT open reach engineers working nearby and cars passing who all stopped to help, and they should all be greatly commended for their efforts."
A statement from Staffordshire Police confirmed the rider's next of kin has been informed.
"Officers were called at 12.12pm on Monday to Roman Road at the junction of Keepers Lane, Little Aston, following reports of a sudden death," the force confirmed
"Sadly, a cyclist, a man in his 70s, was pronounced dead by medics a short time later. His death is not being treated as suspicious at this time.
"His next of kin has been informed. A file will shortly be prepared for HM Coroner."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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11 comments
From this unfortunate story, I now realise that some of my rides and close passes submitted should have gone to Staff Police and not WMP. If WMP fed back I would have realised my mistake early on.
Also seems Staffs is not on the Next Base portal so will have fun working through their submission process.
I went out on Monday in an attempt to drive up my core temperature. It's not that easy to demonstrate this because the only convenient spot to measure temperature is under the tongue- the anus is not too handy and I don't have a tympanic membrane thermometer and don't know if they're any better under intensive exercise conditions. I stopped at the top of a hill climb in the shade, but had to wait a few seconds before I could breathe enough with my mouth closed. It came out at 34C- presumably because the hard breathing with mouth open cools your gob down. Not a reliable experiment.
Agree with HP.
Saw an air ambulance land at the QE hospital in Birmingham around midday so I now wonder if it is the same one. Roman Road has quite a short but sharp climb that end of it so I also wonder if he had just come up it as well.
Thoughts to his family and friends.
Stay out of the heat, people
Stay out of the heat, people
No, don't! Or, more correctly, decide for yourself. There are some suspect assumptions here.
Yes, we're assuming the heat has a role to play and it's quite a reasonable assumption. Unless you've trained in heat, you're unlikely to know how your body copes with it, but heat certainly puts extra stress on the heart, lungs and kidneys and there's also the dangers of dehydration compounding the issues.
Another good reason to stay out of the heat is that the emergency services are especially stretched during heatwaves so it's best to not add any avoidable workload to them.
There was an article on the BBC, some point over the last couple of days, and they were telling people not to exercise outdoors during the heatwave. They said this was because your core temperature rises whenever you exercise, and that at the moment that would be to dangerous levels. They actually said that during the last couple of days, people's core temperatures would be rising (as if they were exercising hard) just by walking around the house...
The peculiar thing is that many of us have been on holidays abroad to Spain, Greece or America where temperatures similar to the last couple of days are normal. I've certainly done some serious hill walking in very high temperatures. Nobody would say don't excercise in countries with hot climates, though of course there are things you do to avoid heat stress.
I guess the point is to ensure that you have considered the impact of heat, rather than to ignore it, but we found the blanket "Don't!" rather irritating.
I'm afraid a lot of the population don't due nuance, so it's B&W instructions.
Is there anything in the report to suggest that the heat was responsible? Condolences to those affected.
Nope, but that'll require post-mortem examination. There's several mentions of "heat" so I'd bet a couple of acorns on it being a factor, especially considering that heat affects the young and elderly quite badly.