Nearly 100 high school and college athletes have died due to heat stroke, mostly within the first two to four days of football practice, according to a sports medicine report written by William O. Roberts.

Although the condition is easily preventable, the damage can be catastrophic.

Dr. Kevin Miller, a professor in rehab and medical science at Central Michigan University, has been conducting experiments to test whether removing football equipment is necessary to save time and cool the patient's core body temperature down.

Dr. Blaine Long worked with Miller in understanding and developing the research.

“For the university this is some ground breaking evidence," Long said. "This isn't just a nationwide concern, it’s international. The results we get from this has a huge impact on the health care of athletes and how they are treated. This for CMU is a going to be a impact because of recognition, and it’s going to impact increased research productivity.”

Millers goal with this experiment was to find the best and safest way to treat a football player with heat stroke. Long also said these types of studies are important to the university not only for recognition but its impact nationally.

The idea came to Miller after discussing heat exhaustion and heat stroke with a friend. He wanted to know if taking the football equipment off would help with cooling the athlete down.

“My question wasn't so much how long it took, but whether it was even needed," he said. "There wasn't anyone asking this, so I wanted to look into it. My research involves heat illness and muscle cramping.”

Heat illness and heat stroke can be differentiated by the fact that having a heat stroke can be fatal and can lead to death if not treated in time.

“People need to understand the physiological difference between the two," Long said. "When an athletes body endures a heat stroke it is a full body shut down and the worst that can come out of it is someone can die from what we’ve seen across the country.”

To conduct this research Miller had volunteers put on football equipment and run while in a heat chamber at a temperature of 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Miller would then have them run and walk until their body temperature was at 103.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

“I would have them stop at 103.1 degrees Fahrenheit and then put them into a 50 degree fahrenheit cold water bath to see how fast their temperature would go down,” Miller. “We found that the removal of football equipment does not change how fast the athletes body cooled down. People with heat stroke are often unconscious, vomiting and exhibit nausea. Removing equipment is thing on their mind, and they can get irritable.”

According to Roberts, symptoms of heat stroke are blurred vision, dizziness and weakness, unconsciousness, dry skin and vomiting.

“Vomiting is not normal during exercise, especially in the heat." Roberts said. "Vomiting occurs because the gastrointestinal tract is no longer working properly and the ingested fluids are not absorbed. Sweat losses are not replaced so the athlete becomes dehydrated and has a higher risk for heat stroke.”

According to Roberts, it is not the degree of tissue temperature elevation that is important in survival of a heat stroke, but rather the length of time that the body temperature is elevated at a critical level, which is in the range of 106 degrees Fahrenheit.

“In mathematical terms, reducing the area under the heating-cooling curve above the 106 degree line in minutes is critical to the outcome of heat stroke no matter what the initial or peak core temperature,” Roberts said.

Results from Miller’s experiments concluded a healthy, non delusional, conscious athlete takes four minutes to remove the football equipment. It takes more than four if they are delusional and unconscious. The presence of football equipment does not delay the cooling of the athletes body temperature.

“We want to cool the athlete down within thirty minutes, this ensures a survival rate of 100 percent,” Miller said. “It’s best to cool the athlete down immediately by placing them in a cold bath, and then seeking EMS, we are trying to save time.”

To prevent heat stroke, Miller said to pay attention to the environment exercise is being done in, going on long runs in hot humid conditions is not advised. The humidity plays a large part in whether or not heat stroke will occur because the skin is not able to absorb sweat, it just drips off and is ineffective in cooling body temperature.

“If we take a look at when heat stroke occurs most it is when athletes exercise passed their physical ability, they tend to ignore their brain’s signals of telling them to stop,” Miller said. “We need to listen to our brains when they tell us we've had enough. Also staying hydrated and making sure you are hydrated can prevent heat stroke from occurring.”

The best thing to do when someone is experiencing a heat stroke is to cool them down immediately. Miller said cooling down the patient in an ice tub is the first thing to do and then transport should be followed up.

Survival rate for heat stroke is 100 percent if treated immediately. If the body isn't cooled down until a transport is made to the hospital, a patient may have to stay in the hospital for two weeks and suffer from organ dysfunction.