Coroner confirms heat-related death
The Rock County Coroner’s Office has confirmed the death today of an 83-year-old Rock County woman was heat-related.
Details were limited, but Deputy Coroner Lou Smit said that the coroner’s office responded to two deaths this afternoon, and one of them was “definitely heat-related.”
Smit said Coroner Jenifer Keach still was at the scene this afternoon at the location where the woman was found dead.
Smit said that he did not have an address where the woman was found, and he did not know whether the woman lived alone. The coroner’s office is not expected to release her identity or details of her death until Friday.
The Gazette could not immediately reach Keach for comment.
Smit indicated that the temperature in the residence and the condition of the woman when authorities found her made it clear her death was caused by extreme heat.
Health officials are urging people to watch for signs of heat stroke or heat exhaustion, which can include weakness, exhaustion, headaches and dizziness.
Emergency rooms for SSM Healthcare are reporting dozens of people in the area have been brought in with “heat-related injuries” today and on Wednesday, including six people taken to St. Mary’s Janesville Hospital, and six people to Edgerton Hospital.
Smit said authorities have linked another Rock County death last week to extreme heat. He said the death appeared to be from an underlying condition, and heat likely contributed to it.
He said the temperature in the house was a stifling 95 degrees, and the victim, apparently a woman, had begun to decompose by the time authorities discovered her.
Milton Police Chief Dan Layber told The Gazette that another death reported this afternoon on John Paul Road was not heat-related, and it did not appear to be a “violent death.”
Layber gave no other details, but he said the coroner’s office still was investigating the death this afternoon.
