Siren blaring, Sunil Kumar Naik's ambulance tore across a dry and rocky countryside blasted by dangerous midday heat, rushing to check on a vomiting and dizzy 30-year-old man with possible heat stroke. As soon as they reached the man's village, Naik's paramedic partner guided the stricken man into the ambulance, then checked his pulse and oxygen levels as Naik sped back to the public hospital.
With barely a moment to drink some water and splash their faces, the men were dispatched again, this time to pick up a pregnant woman who had gone into labor as the temperature soared to 43 degrees Celsius (109.4 Fahrenheit). And so went another furious 12-hour shift in India's increasingly deadly summer, when Naik and paramedic Jitendra Kumar sometimes find themselves hurrying to as many as twice the usual number of calls.
