SINGAPORE: As an emergency doctor in the Singapore General Hospital (SGH), Jason Yeong has seen all sorts of heat-related injuries: heat cramps, heat exhaustion and people fainting.

Some of the cases have been heat stroke, with patients coming in “very agitated, very confused, sometimes even aggressive”, said the associate consultant.

“We do tend to see heat injuries come in (from) half-marathons and above. And that’s largely due to the distance (people) are running.”

Given its central location, SGH is typically the hospital that injured runners are brought to during or after a race. And it has seen more heat-related injuries in recent years.

The numbers have increased from about 10 cases in 2022 to 30 in 2023 to 50 last year, Yeong said.

“One of the reasons is that people are being more physically active, taking part in more exercise-related activities, pushing themselves harder, signing up for these kinds of competitive runs.”

Popular races that have seen more participants include the Great Eastern Women’s Run, from 9,000 runners in 2023 to more than 12,000 this year, and the 2XU Compression Run, from 18,500 runners to more than 20,000 over the same period.

Then there is the nation’s flagship marathon event, the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon, scheduled for this weekend with 60,000 runners expected, up from more than 55,000 last year and 44,000 in 2023.

More runners joining races does not only mean more injuries. In some cases, there have been fatalities — at least nine publicly documented cases in Singapore’s stand-alone road runs since 2007.

The last two deaths after a race were ...