Why some people drop dead while shoveling snow
By Brady Dennis, Washington Post
Each approaching blizzard brings warnings about the dangers of shoveling snow, an activity that sends thousands of Americans to emergency rooms each winter. Don’t tackle the walkway if you aren’t in good enough shape, say the experts. You can get hurt or, even worse, trigger a heart attack or stroke.
Medically speaking, a person is indeed more likely to keel over while heaving snow than, say, jogging on a treadmill. But why?
“Physically, what happens when you get really cold is you have constriction of the blood vessels,” says Lawrence Phillips, a cardiologist at NYU Langone Medical Center. “It decreases the blood supply you’re getting to your vital organs.”