'Extreme heat can be fatal': B.C. coroner investigating 3 recent heat deaths

As the province continues to see more broken heat records, the BC Coroners Service is investigating three deaths where hyperthermia is suspected as the cause this year, CTV News has learned.

As the province continues to see more broken heat records, the BC Coroners Service is investigating three deaths where hyperthermia is suspected as the cause this year, CTV News has learned. 

While the temperatures haven’t been nearly as extreme as 2021 when 619 people died during a prolonged, record-shattering heat dome, the province’s coroners are still investigating the deaths of 16 people believed to be related to extreme heat last year as well.

“Extreme heat can be fatal,” said Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner for the province of British Columbia. “We don't have aggregate data analyzed for the more recent deaths, but certainly there was overwhelming evidence from the 2021 death review panel that people who are older, people with underlying health conditions, certainly that environment where there’s no air conditioning…has the potential for causing some pretty severe impacts.”

When CTV News asked if health-care providers were more aware of the risks given the horrific death toll of the 2021 heat dome and thus more likely to report suspected heat-related deaths than they had been in the past, LaPointe agreed that’s possible and has had implications for her staff as well.

“It certainly has caused us as coroners to be far more thoughtful about the investigation of any deaths in extreme temperatures,” she said. “People aren't necessarily aware of how hot they're becoming and as confusion and fatigue starts to set in, people are less aware, less able to help themselves.”

It’s within this context that the province’s two largest health authorities published a bulletin late last week urging landlords and stratas to remove bylaws or policies against air conditioning or other cooling devices as the province increasingly sees hotter summers with dangerously high temperatures.

Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health also sent their guidance to landlord and strata associations to “make lifesaving decisions” that overrule considerations about aesthetics or building envelope.