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Editor’s note: Some of the details in this story may be sensitive for some; viewer discretion is advised.
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Betty-Lou Summer, an 82-year-old woman, is fighting for her life in a burn unit ICU after falling asleep at her community pool and suffering severe heat stroke and burns covering approximately 30% of her body, all within a single hour.
Summer’s daughter, Michelle Gabbert, said her mother drove herself to the pool near her home, as she had recently retired and planned to spend her days relaxing poolside.
“She went to sunbathe, lie down, fell asleep, kind of dozed off, and then became unresponsive,” Gabbert said.
Pool bystanders noticed Summer was not waking up and called paramedics, who covered her in wet towels and moved her into the shade. Summer was rushed to Banner Ironwood Medical Center on June 11.
Gabbert, a physician, said her mother’s condition was critical upon arrival.
“They intubated her. They had to put her on pressers. She had burns all over her body, blisters,” Gabbert said. “She went into hypovolemic shock, and her kidneys were shutting down, which happens with heat stroke.”
The burns were not only from sun exposure. Metal chairs at the pool had been baking in the heat, and anywhere Summer’s skin made contact with the metal was severely damaged.
“Her pinky tip, which was touching the metal chair, was completely, the whole tip of it was gone. Anywhere that touched the metal on the chair completely just fried,” Gabbert said.
Gabbert said she was out of the country when she learned something was wrong. Her sister, who lives with Summer, tracked her through the Life360 app and saw her location moving toward Banner Ironwood at 60 miles per hour.
When Gabbert’s sister went to the pool and found Summer’s car still there, the family realized she had been taken by ambulance.
Summer was transferred to a burn center on June 13. Doctors placed her on dialysis and performed her first debridement surgery to remove dead and burned skin. She also developed shock, liver and acute renal failure.
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“We weren’t sure she was gonna make it through the night,” Gabbert said.
Summer has since been taken off the ventilator and dialysis, and her liver and kidney lab results have returned to normal. However, she remains in the burn unit ICU and faces a long recovery. She has three wound vacs and undergoes debridement surgery every four to five days. She will also need multiple skin grafts, though Gabbert said the tissue is not yet healthy enough for that procedure.
“The only thing now is really the burns and the significant damage from the sun just being out for one hour,” Gabbert said.
Gabbert said her mother’s age is a significant factor in her recovery. Older adults have thinner skin, less subcutaneous fat, slower healing, and difficulty regulating body temperature, all of which contributed to the severity of Summer’s injuries.
“Especially with little kids, they have a smaller body surface area, and then with the elderly, older people, their skin is very thin,” Gabbert said. “They have trouble regulating their temperatures. Their temperature sensors in their body don’t work the same.”
Gabbert urged families with elderly parents or young children to take extra precautions in the Arizona sun, including wearing big floppy hats, protective clothing, and sunscreen, and staying hydrated. She noted that Summer did have water with her at the pool, but the situation escalated too quickly.
“The sun is wicked here in Arizona, as we know, and we’ve seen a lot of heat-related deaths,” Gabbert said.
Summer, who got her real estate license at 75 and recently sold her snowbird home management business, is described by her daughter as a community fixture who volunteers at food banks, helps the homeless, and is active in her church. Gabbert said Summer already knows the names of every nurse and doctor caring for her.
A GoFundMe has been established to help cover the cost of wound care and transportation to the burn clinic; expenses Gabbert said Medicare will only partially cover. The response from the community has been overwhelming.
“The community has been so supportive and loving,” Gabbert said. “She has a long journey ahead of her. We don’t even know if she’s gonna walk out of the hospital. I mean, we have faith. She’s a woman of faith.”
Gabbert said she believes her mother will recover.
“I foresee she will walk out of here and I can see her coming to help all the other people that have had burn injuries with her journey,” Gabbert said. “She’s a fighter. She’s a true warrior.”
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