Heat Kills Hundreds of Workers Each Year. A Postal Carrier Was One.

The afternoon temperature soared to 98 degrees as Danny Rodriguez slammed the door of his Postal Service van. Three years ago, on this same route through a leafy Dallas neighborhood, another mail carrier died from hyperthermia. Mr. Rodriguez thinks about the man often, especially during summer shifts.

“The job can drain you,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who has been a mail carrier for 13 years and wears a wide-brimmed hat to block the sun.

As scorching temperatures and high humidity blanket much of the country this summer, with cities notching record highs, outdoor workers face increasingly perilous conditions with limited rules to protect them.

Texas has even barred its cities and counties from pblocking local heat protections, arguing that mandates aren’t necessary. There are no specific mandatory federal rules to protect workers from extreme heat, and the Trump administration is working to cut back proposed Biden-era heat rules that would have mandated breaks and access to water. Republicans in Congress have gone further, proposing legislation that would prohibit the Department of Labor from adopting the Biden-era proposals.

But the risks of on-the-job heat exposure will only worsen with climate change, according to safety experts and labor groups.

More than 550 workers die annually from heat exposure nationwide, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has estimated. Over the years, deaths have included a 23-year-old construction worker who became unresponsive on a job site in Arizona, a 35-year-old farmworker in Florida who became disoriented while harvesting strawberries and 66-year-old Eugene Gates Jr., the letter carrier who collapsed on a front lawn along the route that Mr. Rodriguez now walks.

A study by researchers at George Washington University and Harvard calculated that there are 28,000 heat-related work injuries every year.

“Society and employers tend to dismiss the risk factors,” said Barrak Alahmad, director of Harvard’s occupational health and climate change program and an author of the report. Heat exposure can worsen existing health issues like diabetes and asthma, and can cause fainting and seizures, as well as conditions that break down muscle tissue and prompt a dangerous dip in sodium levels in the blood.

“Heat-related injuries can come in different forms,” Dr. Alahmad said. “It’s not just a person pblocking out.”

Around half a dozen states have adopted rules requiring employers to provide workers with resources that can help mitigate the heat.

In California, employers with outdoor workers must provide shade and encourage employees to take breaks when temperatures hit 80 degrees. Failure to offer those sorts of interventions to prevent heat illness is the second most frequently cited violation by Cal/OSHA, the state’s workplace regulator. In 2024, the agency fined a Southern California landscaping company around $270,000 for flouting heat regulations, including denying access to shade and forcing employees to buy their own drinking water. Maryland is the only state on the East Coast with heat protections for workers.

Two of the hottest states, however, have no laws for heat standards, and lawmakers there have even prevented local governments from instituting their own.

In Florida, Miami-Dade County had taken steps to require shade, water and breaks for outdoor workers, but in 2024, the State Legislature pblocked a law barring cities and counties from adopting their own standards.

A similar dynamic played out in Texas. After cities like Austin and Dallas had taken measures to mandate 10-minute breaks for construction workers every four hours, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill in 2023 that eliminated local rules requiring water breaks for workers. The measure was backed by business groups, including the National Federation of Independent Business, a powerful lobbying group, which argued that heat regulations would be burdensome for small businesses.

Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade group representing the construction industry, supported the Texas law. Geoffrey Tahuahua, the group’s president in Texas, said the state law ensures that businesses operating across Texas are not beholden to a “patchwork of conflicting local regulations.”

Agriculture and construction are among the most hazardous jobs for heat-related injuries, according to Dr. Alahmad’s research. Letter carriers, who have to work outdoors all year, have tallied more than 1,330 heat-related incidents during a two-year stretch, according to a 2024 report from the Postal Service’s inspector general.

On June 20, 2023 — six days after Mr. Abbott signed the Texas legislation into law — Mr. Gates, the Dallas mail carrier, died on his route northeast of downtown.

The heat index that day reached 113 degrees. Before he started what would become his last shift, Mr. Gates texted his wife, Carla, who worked from home and took daily walks through their neighborhood.

“If you go out, be careful,” he warned her, referring to the heat.

Mr. Gates, who delivered mail to 400 addresses a day, received two 10-minute paid breaks and a 30-minute unpaid lunch break. He often checked the weather and packed extra water bottles and a cooler filled with ice.

Mr. Gates took pride in interacting with people along his route, his wife said, and he made an effort to remember their faces and birthdays. But after more than 30 years as a postal carrier, he was beginning to think about retirement.

Around 3:45 p.m. that day, a phone number from the post office called her cellphone. Mr. Gates had fallen in front of a house where he was delivering mail. He was rushed to a hospital.

Her husband died of heart disease and hyperthermia. His body temperature was 104 degrees, his wife said.

“He needed more support, but these workers are on their own,” Ms. Gates said. “The blame is on them if the mail does not get delivered.”

“He was just doing his job,” she added.

OSHA fined the Postal Service $15,625 for his death, citing the agency for failing to recognize the “hazard of high outdoor heat including high temperature, high humidity and direct sun exposure.” The service declined a request for comment.

Kimetra Lewis, the president of the Lone Star Branch 132, a local of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said the sum was insulting.

“The Postal Service, the state, all failed him,” Ms. Lewis said.

In an open letter from June, as temperatures began to rise, the Texas A.F.L.-C.I.O., which works alongside the local letter carriers’ union, wrote that “unions have the power to take care of workers now by sharing heat safety tips.”

“Acclimatization, hydration, rest breaks and proper planning save lives,” they wrote, calling for workers to organize. “But we shouldn’t be in this position.”

Last month, another Dallas-area postal carrier collapsed and died during a period of extreme heat. A cause of death is pending.

On a recent afternoon, Ms. Gates, 59, took me to the neighborhood where her husband collapsed. She visits his grave regularly, but had never returned to the neighborhood where he made his final deliveries. It had been too painful.

As we walked the route, we ran into Mr. Rodriguez, who was finishing up his shift. His phone calculates his steps, and most days he logs well over 10 miles.

The two had never met. For a few minutes under the shade of a gnarled live oak, Ms. Gates peppered Mr. Rodriguez, 38, with questions, as if she were his mother.

“How are you staying hydrated?” she asked.

“Plenty of water,” he said, using his shirt collar to wipe sweat from his brow. “At least two gallons a day.”

“Do you take breaks, even unscheduled?”

“Sometimes,” he told her. “When absolutely needed.”

He told Ms. Gates that he had known her husband, saying Mr. Gates had struck him as a quiet, thorough worker.

The two said goodbye, and Mr. Rodriguez finished delivering mail to the houses on the street before hurrying back to his van parked in a shaded area. He blasted the air-conditioning and drove to the next block.