US national dies from apparent heat stroke in Albay

LEGAZPI CITY—The remains of an American national, who suffered a heart attack while basking on the beach of a resort in Sto. Domingo, Albay, was cremated on Saturday.

The victim, Steven Meyers, 57, a native of Nebraska, was cremated at 2 p.m., said his Filipino girlfriend Fernanda Biñas, 47, and a local government employee.

“After talking to his family we decided to cremate his cadaver. We will still talk about what to do with the ashes,” Biñas said in a phone interview.

Meyers arrived here on May 16 to meet Biñas, a resident of Barangay Humapon, Legazpi City, whom Meyers got acquainted with through the Internet, said Police Officer 2 Alex Balaoro, investigator on case at the Sto. Domingo Municipal Police Office.

Balaoro, in a phone interview, said the couple was staying at a beach resort in Barangay Calayucay in Sto. Domingo, the town that adjoins this city, on Wednesday when Meyers turned pale and weak at around 5:40 p.m. while lying at the shoreline of the resort.

Meyers was rushed to the Albay Doctors Hospital, a private hospital in Legazpi City, but died an hour later, said Balaoro.

He said an autopsy of the National Bureau of Investigation-Legazpi division showed Meyers died of acute myocardial infarction, commonly known as “heart attack.”

Biñas said the temperature was “very hot” (34 degrees celcius) on the day Meyers died and could have triggered his condition.

Dr. Nathaniel Rempillo, Albay provincial health officer said, too much heat or an “extreme weather condition” could trigger a heart attack, a rise in blood pressure, asthma attack and other forms of illness.

The state weather bureau had earlier advised against extreme high temperatures in the country on Wednesday (May 20).