Think of the chocolate!!!
Posted on 10/10/2023 7:03:22 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
August 2016 was, at the time, the planet’s hottest month on record. In Freehold, New Jersey, where Jim Klenk was driving his usual route for UPS, midday temperatures were hitting highs in the 80s and 90s.
During one of those punishing late-summer days, Klenk, who was 58, started feeling sick. He was disoriented, his wife, Theresa Klenk, recalled. He hadn’t been able to urinate all day.
Like most of America’s more than 1.5 million parcel delivery drivers, Jim drove a vehicle that lacked air conditioning. On a typical shift, he would be in and out of his truck every few minutes, spending the bulk of his time in the back cargo area, where temperatures can exceed 120 degrees, according to the Teamsters union, which represents UPS drivers.
Theresa, a nurse, said Jim didn’t want an ambulance or a trip to the ER.
Eventually, though, she managed to get him to the hospital where she worked. He was already in kidney failure by the time they arrived.
“They pulled me out and asked me what Jim’s last wishes would be,” she said.
Heatstroke, one of the most common and most deadly heat-related illnesses, had put Jim in acute renal failure, Theresa said. But he got lucky, and he was able to go home after five days in the hospital.
For Theresa, Jim’s close call was a turning point. At the time, she said, no UPS drivers wanted to speak up about the increasingly brutal conditions for fear of being reprimanded. She felt uniquely positioned to begin advocating for change.
(Excerpt) Read more at channel3000.com ...
You have made bad choices if you are delivering UPS at 58. Way too old. 80-90’s is what you get in any summer.
Grade “A” Bullshit. We’ve lived in N Texas 40 years. One of the first thing you learn is in summer time you always make sure you drink plenty of water or something like Gatorade. Instead of enlisting in the “Climate Change” Army of Fools maybe she should join or form a group to fight companies like UPS to provide air conditioned vehicles for their drivers.
But it’s a dry heat...
Yes welders working in the sun nod keep working sounds like the old boy may have had other issues?.
A hydrated man who is otherwise healthy, including being of healthy weight, should not have heatstroke under these conditions.
I did that type of job my entire life. We had the 5 gallon insulated coolers. I made and drank what we called moon juice. It was real lemonade, mixed with grape kool aid. We would float bottles of gatorade in the ice. If you weren’t drinking, you are stupid.
Here we have the same people who advocate for ELECTRIC cars, telling us how good electric AC is going to help keep a UPS cool and ready to travel long distances. You can’t have electric radio, fan, AC, doors open, stop and go on a battery charge. Not to mention a Gross weight of 26K pounds. It is like electric buses that will work in the summer and winter.
“DRINK MORE WATER!”
That is it in a nutshell. Water, salt, and bananas.
Exactly, the wife didn’t work to control her husbands habitual lack of intake. Personal responsibility cannot be taught by government, nor can it be mandated by a wife. It was her job to know his habits, and compensate. She is a nurse but ignored his personal habits? This was on her and her husband. You don’t change the world, so save idiots.
Like from a toilet?
What kills you in the desert heat or in the heat and humidity of Houston when you are working, is not being able to respond to your internal thermostat, that is why you hear of people dying when they are doing an activity that is forced on them, like football practice or basic training.
On a good construction crew you monitor your men when heat is a problem, let them work at their own pace and if you see one overworking his body’s ability to cool him then you slow him down or pull him off for a bit.
The UPS drivers are working at a forced pace, a constant pace, and they need to be trained in some of the basic medical about heat problems and made to take a break if their body temp is climbing, an A/C blaster focused entirely on the driver would help them between stops and it would also serve for a cooling place to sit if they were forced to stop for a bit to let their internals settle down.
The problem that not everyone faces when working at their own pace is their internal thermostat getting out of control and they die.
We keep 16 oz bottled water containers by our back door and car port ramp and packaged Milano cookies for our various delivery people.
A substitute driver offered me $3 for the water and cookie during a 100+ degree day. He couldn’t believe we had these life savers for free for our drivers.
It’s a younger man’s job...
80s? 90s? Here in Vegas it’s not a heat wave until it reaches 110F.
As a UPS driver in the valley in Arizona if you are getting sick at 90 degrees there is something else wrong with you.
Oh yes, growing up in hot summers India, my mother watched us kids like a hawk and I had to wear a hat and not stay in the sun very long.
I’m about the only male in 3 generations of family who hasn’t worked in 300 degree asphalt
My son runs a roller and paver with only an umbrella for shade
I really don’t much like it when he’s working on interstates with trucks running past him just a few feet away from where he sits
Yeah, in humid Florida 90 deg is lethal but not in dry AZ.
I don’t know what health issues the driver might have had, but not urinating for a long period means you’re severely dehydrated (well, there’s also prostate trouble, but that’s a different matter).
I used to work in open-pit copper mines here in Arizona, where the temps at the bottom of the pit would routinely get over 120 in the summer. Heat disorders were all too common, and one of the standard safety topics was how to recognize them and what to do about them. One thing was always to drink LOTS of water (or Gatorade if you like the stuff). Another thing is that if you do suffer heat stroke, you’ll always be at increased risk afterwards.
Time for the driver to get out of the delivery truck and find a different job. Not easy at 58 but he could die next time.
Bingo!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.