GARDEN CITY -- Thousands braved the heat Saturday for the Third Annual Boise Music Festival. Gates opened at 10 a.m., making it a long hot day for music-lovers and paramedics.
"Just walking around getting lots of water, using a fan, sitting in shade, they have air conditioning inside which is important," said Monique Sieber.
Still, thousands came out to listen to music. The temperatures made Peder Ahearn's job more difficult.
"With these temperatures, typically what we're doing is we're doing a lot of preventative maintenance," said Ahearn, a paramedic with Ada County Paramedics. "Most commonly it's heat exhaustion. Typically people don't understand how much water they need to hydrate."
Many folks opted for alcohol or a sugary drink, which does more damage. Ahearn told us that by 5 p.m., they responded to 25 cases of heat exhaustion.
People did what it took to stay cool.
"We've been going to the restroom because the water fountains don't work, so we have to go to the restrooms and get the water out of the faucet and just pouring it over our heads, pouring it over our kids' heads and stuff," said Nazario Chavez, who went to the festival.
And the cool down in the afternoon wasn't necessarily a good thing.
"The problem with cool weather is when you have the cool weather, people assume that they're not going to get dehydrated so they stop drinking as much water and then substitute it with alcohol, or any kind of sugary drinks," said Ahearn.
People still tried to enjoy the day.
"It has been a long, hot day," Chavez said. "We're making the best out of it. Kids kind of get cranky once in a while, but we bought them a couple snow cones and got them in the swimming pool over there."
Ada County Paramedics teamed up with nurses from St. Alphonsus and Canyon County Paramedics for the event.
