How did they know?................
Another Dallas Postman died on the job 2 years ago.
“On June 20, 2023, Dallas letter carrier Eugene Gates Jr. collapsed and died on his mail route. The heat index that day was 117 degrees. His wife said the vehicle he was driving that day was not air-conditioned.
OSHA fined the U.S. Postal Service more than $15,000 for not protecting Gates from the heat. The citation listed recommended measures, including earlier start times and a heat acclimatization plan.”
Same thing happened to a postal worker here where I live in Colorado a couple weeks ago.
Safe and effective is NOT the cause.
We have the most wonderful mailman. It has been hot as blazes around here the past 3 days. When we can catch him getting into his truck, we give him water and Gatorade. He is very appreciative.
A bottle of water doesn’t cut it in 117 degrees. Especially if it’s in the jeep getting hot. If your core temperature gets up too high, you die. And really, they should have AC.
So he is too cheap to bring water, gatorade, or other liquids with him.
People who work outdoor jobs full time need to know the basics of working outdoors life, and managers and foremen need to maintain the basic heat/cold education and enforce it.
Is this really news?
I would expect at least one mail carrier death per day due to cardiac arrest... A lot of mail carriers are fat and out of shape... That’s why they give them those tiny vans to drive around in. If wasn’t for those tiny vans, the death rate amongst them would be much higher.
It is popular to blame the employer for every mishap experienced by a worker. But at the end of the day coming home with all the parts you left with or even coming home at all is a personal responsibility.
No one is responsible for you except you. I have had some wonderful employers who cared deeply about my safety. But never once did I leave my well being in their hands.
One employer said that lift truck drivers and pedestrians (factory worker) were each responsible for looking out for each other and they had guarded cross walks and flashing lights for lift trucks everywhere.
My other employer said “Assume that the lift truck driver is trying to kill you”.
Guess who never had a death or even serious injury?
I’m 70 and was out doing carpenter work mad dogs & Englishmen yesterday.
A friend died in his back yard of burst artery in his stomach. He was quite fit. They estimate he bled to death internally within a couple minutes.
No one had any idea he had an aneurysm in this major artery.
Hydration, hydration, hydration times ten when its hot.
Licking too many envelopes and stamps.
How long until there are driverless vehicles to deliver mail?
One of the company’s around here that has workers who have to do their jobs in outside or in very hot confined spaces has, in their infinite stupidity, decided to no longer supply hydrating drinks or even water cans, ice and salt tablets. German managers and fools.
How about a vehicle with AC? The Senate wanted to sell what few USPS had gotten at auction and then pocket the funds, vehicles congress made them buy in the first place, simply because they plugged into electric chargers.
Carriers are walking up to 18 miles a day on routes in all environments. There’s still over 100,000 vehicles with no AC being used by carriers (and even having AC, that only is effective if the carriers have enough time to cool down the vehicle before their next leg... which most don’t as any stationary event of ten minutes or more gets reported.)
Bottles of water - I mean, I’d go through 1.5 gallons in a service day, those gas stations with beer caves were my favorite comfort stop as I could actually cool down a little in the chilled room before resuming the route. Doing that up to 6 days a week in weather up to 120 degrees...
By the by, that’s not the post office’s motto, that was a tribute that an architect added to a building. Might as well be true - but add in riots, gang warfare, train derailments, forest fires, mudslides...
Well, he had to deliver only ‘Male’.
That is a life-threating burden.
Should have had some ‘Female’ in the delivery mix, to balance things.