After declaring a heat advisory and heat warning, Chicago city officials recently opened cooling centers to provide relief to people suffering through a midsummer heat spell. But it was too late to save one recent victim.

In a story by the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago firefighters reportedly found an 88-year-old woman unconscious inside her apartment on Monday, May 24 after someone inside the apartment called 911. The unidentified woman's 87-year-old husband was very weak and disoriented and their apartment was extremely hot and without air conditioning, the officials said.

An autopsy Monday showed that 79-year-old Mary Dwyer died of complications from heat-related stress, the Cook County Medical Examiner's office reported.