In July of last year, a Mississippi high school sent 11 marching band members to the hospital after they collapsed during practice. I was in the marching band in high school in the Mojave Desert, where the temperatures would regularly break 100F/40C. You lose a lot of water when you’re playing an instrument (they don’t have spit valves for nothing), and marching bands still maintain a lot of traditions from their military origins, so you do a lot of push-ups. The thick wool uniforms you wear during performances don’t help anything either – we had elaborate rituals involving baby powder to try to stay dry inside the uniform, which was harder than you might expect considering how dry the desert air is. We’d have a few kids pass out during band camp each summer, but I can only remember once someone went down during a performance – she marched right off the field and collapsed on the sideline, and was fine after some fluids and rest.

Heat strokes like that mean you’re at the edge of what can kill. Really bad sign if there is a culture of toughing it out