Heat killed 24-year-old Texas man Gabriel Infante in 2022, spurring lawsuit - The Washington Post

Heat killed 24-year-old Texas man Gabriel Infante in 2022, spurring lawsuit - The Washington Post

When the ambulance picked up 24-year-old Gabriel Infante, his internal body temperature was nearly 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Hours later, Infante would die at the hospital — a victim of extreme heat and, a lawsuit filed by his mother alleges, failure by his construction company to keep its workers safe in the hazardous June weather. He was one of hundreds of people to die of heat-related causes last year.

This summer, as record heat waves scorch large swaths of the country, workers continue laboring in temperatures above 100 degrees, risking illness and death. When heat conditions become too extreme, the human body begins losing its ability to cool down.

The United States remains gripped by a weeks-long heat dome, with 59 million Americans in the path of hazardous conditions on Saturday and the heat index again forecast to reach a dangerous zone in much of the South and parts of California and Arizona. This past week, thousands of people went to the emergency room for heat-related illness, according to federal tracking, and deaths have been reported in multiple states this summer.

With the threat of extreme heat expected to worsen as climate change progresses, scientists say, millions of Americans are projected to experience high temperatures more frequently and in longer waves.

Across Texas last year, at least 306 people died of heat, according to preliminary data from the Texas Department of State Health Services — the state’s highest number in the past decade. Because of lags in death reporting, the state has not finalized those tallies and does not yet know how many people have died this year.

Infante’s case — and the plight of others who labor in the heat, such as UPS drivers, who are on the brink of a strike over issues including non-air-conditioned trucks — sits at the intersection of climate change and workers’ rights. And it raises questions about how humanity will adapt to a warming planet.

“Something has to be done,” Infante’s mother, Velma Infante, said Friday. “These workers, in any line of work … you can’t have them [out there] and not have them take the time to rest and hydrate.”

Debating protections

Gabriel Infante was a quiet, laid-back guy who played the saxophone and filled notebooks with song lyrics, did math equations faster than his mother could swipe to her phone’s calculator and was the baby brother to four older siblings, his mother said. He had struggled with dyslexia but hoped to one day finish his bachelor’s degree.

He took the cable-laying job in 2022 for extra income, planning to send his mother part of his first paycheck. Things had been tough for Velma financially since Gabriel’s father had died a year and a half earlier, she said, and that April she was grieving the death of her mother. Her son promised to help.

Before June ended, he was gone.

His mother’s lawsuit, filed last month in Bexar County, Tex., accuses B Comm Constructors of negligence, saying the company failed to protect its employees from the heat hazard or to implement protocols to prevent heat-related illness. His mother is seeking $1 million in damages.

The suit also alleges that a foreman at the job site dismissed Infante’s symptoms, suggesting he was on drugs, even after an emergency responder said he was exhibiting signs of heat stroke. Rather than calling an ambulance immediately, the foreman first suggested calling the police, the lawsuit alleges.

The suit accuses B Comm of creating “an extreme degree of risk” for workers, including by not having a first aid procedure, not adjusting work schedules in response to the high temperature and not providing a shaded rest area.

A person who answered the phone at B Comm Constructors on Friday said no one was available to speak on behalf of the company, and B Comm did not respond to a voice mail from The Washington Post.

In most parts of the United States, few protections for workers are legally required, The Post reported last week. In Texas, the Republican-led legislature this session voted to take away local governments’ ability to set regulations for workplace issues, effectively voiding heat-safety rules in Austin and Dallas that required water breaks. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed the bill into law last month.

The law’s supporters said the measure would help businesses by eliminating local ordinances that can vary from city to city and can make it hard for businesses to operate across the state. Some also told The Post that the scuttled city ordinances were superfluous because of federal safety regulations and industry standards.

Upon signing the bill, Abbott tweeted that his state’s new law would provide “new hope to Texas businesses struggling under burdensome local regulations.”

A spokesperson for the governor said the law maintained federal safety standards for workers and “will not inhibit people from taking water breaks.”

“Every loss of life is a tragedy, and our hearts go out to those who have lost a loved one,” Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said in an email to The Post. “Ensuring the safety of Texans is a top priority as our state experiences high summer heat.”

Laws that eliminate local regulations — often without implementing any state regulations in their place — have seen new popularity in the past 10 to 15 years, frequently led by Republican lawmakers citing a need to protect businesses. In recent years, legislatures have increasingly targeted workers’ issues with such laws, said Jennifer Pomeranz, a New York University public health professor who studies preemption laws.

Forty-four states have at least one law preempting localities from regulating the minimum wage, scheduling, paid leave or other work-related issues, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank that tracks the laws.

Robert C. Hilliard, Velma Infante’s attorney, characterized the Texas law as politicizing workers’ need for breaks and leaving employees vulnerable to bosses who want to get jobs done quickly.

“It all comes back to employers who feel their workers are expendable and that heat should not be considered,” Hilliard said, “and then you have a Republican governor that signs a bill that gives them permission to ignore the issues caused by Texas heat and climate change.”

‘He’s not here’

Velma Infante doesn’t want anyone else to endure what her family has. Now, she thinks about how her son will never graduate from college, have children or return to his hometown as a music teacher, as he’d dreamed of doing. She visits Gabriel at the cemetery, where his ashes were buried on what would have been his 25th birthday, next to his father’s resting place and underneath hummingbird feeders.

“Hopefully something can be done,” she said, referring to her desire to see more heat-safety regulations. “It’s very unfair to have such a young man die so early in life of something that could’ve been prevented.”

This summer, the heat has been difficult. On a recent 103-degree afternoon, the sun was beating down as Velma walked from her car to the grocery store. It was a day like the one that killed Gabriel. She reached for a grocery cart to keep herself from collapsing.

If it felt hot to her, what had her son endured?

“I stopped and started crying, because I just thought of my son. What was he feeling?” she said. “A core body temperature of 110. … What went through his mind? What did he feel?”

A clerk helped her into the grocery store. She composed herself and bought what she’d gone for. When she got back into the car, she cried again.

“My son was a person that mattered to someone,” she said. “And he’s not here.”

More on climate change

Understanding our climate: Global warming is a real phenomenon, and weather disasters are undeniably linked to it. As temperatures rise, heat waves are more often sweeping the globe — and parts of the world are becoming too hot to survive.

What can be done? The Post is tracking a variety of climate solutions, as well as the Biden administration’s actions on environmental issues. It can feel overwhelming facing the impacts of climate change, but there are ways to cope with climate anxiety.

Inventive solutions: Some people have built off-the-grid homes from trash to stand up to a changing climate. As seas rise, others are exploring how to harness marine energy.

What about your role in climate change? Our climate coach Michael J. Coren is answering questions about environmental choices in our everyday lives. Submit yours here. You can also sign up for our Climate Coach newsletter.