Chicago's winter claimed another victim as a 58-year-old woman, Reyna Duarte, succumbed to the cold. She became Cook County's eighth casualty of a brutal cold spell that has gripped the Midwest, according to the Chicago Tribune. The West Lawn local was pronounced dead last Friday at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn after a fatal combination of a stroke, high blood pressure, heart disease, and cold exposure sent her to an early grave, the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office reported.
Duarte experienced what would be her last moments in the frigid hold of 10-degree weather; she collapsed near her home in the 3800 block of West 64th Street and the exact duration of her exposure to the bone-chilling cold remains unknown, but it's clear the cold was more than her body could handle, the onslaught of cold weather has stressed the city as officials opened warming shelters across Chicago trying to shield the vulnerable from the deep freeze. According to CBS News Chicago, seven others in Cook County have already perished from cold-related deaths this season, with heart disease often playing a cruel confederate to the merciless temperatures.
Such deaths are often accompanied by underlying health conditions that, when faced with severe cold, create a deadly cocktail, this has been the case in each of the cold-related fatalities reported in Cook County. As the city grapples with this lethal chill, the death toll speaks to the harsh realities many face when temperatures plummet to unforgiving lows.
Neighboring regions are not immune to the grip of winter's wrath; Will and Lake counties have added three possible weather-related deaths to this period's grim tally, as last week's snowstorm pushed through, prompting the National Weather Service to issue wind chill advisories, as the dangers of the cold snap loomed over the Midwest, residents were urged to find refuge against nature's frostbitten assault, every loss deeply felt as the community comes to terms with the unpredictable, sometimes fatal force of the cold.
