A gush of hot, muggy air rushes through the emergency room of Saitama Hospital one searing afternoon in late July as a stretcher carrying a bloodied elderly woman is rushed in.
The 80-year-old patient is bleeding from her forehead, arms and knees. Earlier in the day, she was found lying on the street after falling twice. When paramedics got to her after a call from a passerby, she was half-conscious and ran a temperature of 39.1 degrees Celsius.
The woman is suspected of having heatstroke — and the emergency room staff knows there is not a second to waste.