Emergency medical staff reported mass casualties Monday in Paterson, New Jersey after extreme heat resulted in more than 100 hospitalizations across two high school graduation ceremonies. The city’s fire division said around 50 people received treatment at one of the events in Hinchliffe Stadium throughout the day, nine of whom were later transferred to a clinic for further care. The second, separate ceremony saw about 100 people in need of treatment, roughly seven of whom were taken into hospital. Local weather reports indicate temperatures peaked in the upper 90s, with the heat index (measuring what a temperature feels like to the skin) climbing as high as 107 degrees. Later in the day, Mayor André Sayegh issued a state of emergency due to the heat, calling off all scheduled recreational facilities until further notice and opening public libraries to serve as cooling centers. “It was exhausting,” one graduating student said, “I couldn’t breathe.” It comes as soaring temperatures continue to impact much of the eastern half of the country. Almost 150 million Americans are currently subject to heat alerts from eastern Texas all the way up to Maine.
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