Word: tub
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...American Religion. Melton has conducted hundreds of field interviews. During one foray to the offices of the animal-loving Church of All Worlds, his wife Dorothea went into a bathroom only to confront a live boa constrictor curled in the corner and a 4-ft. crocodile in the tub...
When a neighbor knocked on the front door of Helen and Wesley LaRoza's house in Simi Valley, Calif., outside Los Angeles, he got no answer. Yet he could clearly hear the burbling sounds of water in the fiber-glass and redwood hot tub that had been installed in their backyard. So he knocked again. Finally, when no one responded, he summoned help. The police found the LaRozas floating in the water-dead. Though detectives first suspected a double suicide, the Ventura County medical examiner, Dr. Donald Kornblum, concluded otherwise: "Quite simply, they died of hyperthermia, or heatstroke...
...death of the California couple underscores a hidden peril in one of America's latest crazes. Some 300,000 Americans have installed hot tubs in their homes and gardens, and another 120,000 are expected to be sold in the U.S. this year. Soothing and relaxing as the warming waters may be, the mini-spas can be killers. Typical of some hot-tub owners, the LaRozas had heated the water to about 114° F (46° C). Doctors and tub manufacturers recommend only 102° to 104° F (39° to 40° C), and even these...
...common practice-the alcohol will increase the strain on the heart, and affect the heat-regulating mechanisms in the brain as well. Besides damaging the heart and brain, excessive heat can also cause irreversible harm to the liver and kidneys. Unless bathers get out of the hot tub and replace the lost fluid, they will feel tired. Sometimes they faint. In extreme cases they will lapse into a coma...
...seems to have happened to the LaRozas. Perhaps lulled by the too warm water and a bit of alcohol, they probably fell asleep minutes after settling into the spa. The sleep turned into coma, the coma to death. Though the deaths are the first to be attributed to hot-tub heatstroke, they are not likely to have been the only ones to occur so far. Says Coroner Kornblum: "God only knows how many cases have gone unreported...