Long Island residents working outside in dangerous and potentially deadly temperatures
Another blast of dangerously cold weather is expected to hit Long Island Saturday.
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For those working outside, like Donnie Carleo at Bill's Towing, cold weekends can be a health hazard.
"One wrong move can mean the difference between life and death," he said.
Carleo expects to be out in the elements towing cars stranded on the side of icy and snowy roads.
"When it's bitterly cold I usually have a scarf on, cover my ears," Carleo said.
Saturday night's combination of wind and frigid cold will be the worst so far this season.
"What that wind is doing is its moving the warm air that your body is generating away from you constantly so that time to developing the frostbite in a brisk wind is much, much quicker," said Dr. Robert Schwaner, with Stony Brook University Hospital.
Dr. Schwaner says because of the low temperatures combined with the high wind, you can get get frostbite on exposed skin within minutes of being outside.
"These temperatures with these winds this weekend, we could easily see a lot of cases," he said.
That's why doctors say stay home if you can.
Atif Hussain works at a full service gas station in Huntington and has electric heaters to warm up when he can.
"Use too much clothes. Sometimes no customers, I go inside cabin I put a heater inside," he said.
Carleo also had a strategy for keeping warm.
"Pace yourself. If you feel like you're getting frost bite, go inside, warm up. Drink a lot of soup," he said.
