STORY 1

From WSAV

A loggerhead sea turtle nest laid on May 11 is the first of this season to hatch on Hilton Head Island.

Sea Turtle Patrol HHI made the announcement Wednesday.

Approximately 30 hatchlings emerged Tuesday night. Sea Turtle Patrol HHI will watch the nest over the next few days to ensure an accurate count.

DNA analysis shows the turtle that laid the eggs in this nest also nested on Hilton Head Island in 2019, 2023 and 2026.

Story 2

From the Island Packet

Firefighters battled a fire at a downtown Beaufort house Monday evening and saved some dragons in the process. Fire crews arrived at 7:30 p.m. to find a working fire at the 2,000 square-foot Wilmington Street residence, according to Ross Vezin, a spokesman for the Beaufort/Port Royal Fire Department.

Beaufort County EMS and Beaufort police also responded. Crews quickly extinguished the fire but that’s not all. They also rescued three pet bearded dragons being kept in an aquarium inside the residence.

Social media comments applauded the firefighters’ work in saving these pets, with commenters calling them heroes.

Story 3

From the Post & Courier

The heat and humidity are unrelenting, and extreme heat advisories from the National Weather Service are blanketing the counties along the South Carolina coast. Doctors say these conditions can be more than just miserable, they could be dangerous.

And that danger is increasing — between 1999 and 2023, more than 21,000 people died in the U.S. from heat-related illness, according to a study in JAMA Network. Those deaths more than doubled, from 1,069 in 1999 to 2,325 in 2023, the highest number of deaths so far, the study found.

The combination of the heat and the humidity work against people in these hot conditions. The body tries to cool itself by sweating and the evaporation of sweat off the skin, which can release body heat. That becomes harder and harder as heat and humidity climb.

It is already taking a toll in the Lowcountry, said Dr. Tejbir Dhindsa, medical director of the emergency room at Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital. While it is hard to know if it is more than previous years, “we are seeing a lot of heat-related illnesses,” he said. It runs the gamut — from feeling light-headed with some cramping to nausea, vomiting and the kidneys shutting down.

And it is not just the heat and humidity that is dangerous if people aren’t careful about sun exposure, Dhindsa said.

“We actually had to talk to a burn doctor yesterday about someone who had a pretty bad, extensive sunburn that had blistered and caused quite a bit of pain,” he said.

Heat exhaustion can have symptoms of sweating, nausea, fatigue, dizziness, cool and clammy skin, and an elevated body temperature, said Dr. Diann Krywko, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina. Heat stroke, the more severe condition, can see confusion, slurred speech, loss of consciousness and even liver or kidney failure, she said.

The best advice, doctors said, is to avoid getting to that point in the first place. If you start to feel symptoms, stop what you are doing, go to a cool space, drink a lot of non-alcoholic fluids and try and hydrate.