A 67-year-old otherwise perfectly healthy woman

decides to work in her garden on a hot summer day. She spends several hours in

the garden in direct sunlight without any fluid intake. Suddenly she becomes

dizzy, falls down and loses consciousness. A few hours later, her neighbour

finds her and calls an ambulance, which takes her to hospital. Nothing serious

happened to the woman during the fall. The cause of the collapse was clearly

overheating accompanied by severe dehydration. To be sure and to rule out other

causes of the collapse, the patient's blood is taken and sent to the

laboratory. What's the hematocrit likely to be in this patient? (illustrative

figure – blood smear)