1 year ago
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On June 20, 2023, Eugene “Gino” Gates collapsed on the lawn of a house in an affluent Dallas, Texas, neighborhood and died. The 66-year-old military veteran was a mail carrier who died of heatstroke while on his route. A homeowner attempted CPR but failed to revive him. Gates’ body temperature at death was 104.6 degrees, and the temperature in Dallas that day was a humid 98 degrees.
The Texas Observer and The Nation reported on the aftermath and “found that in the months following Gates’ death, US [Postal Service] seems to have gone back to business as usual.” That meant letter carriers were still pressured to work faster, log overtime, and not take breaks despite the record-breaking heat of the summer of 2023. They also found that the USPS “continues to violate the standards of its own Heat Illness Prevention Program (HIPP)—some mail carriers say they have not yet completed training for this program, which would violate the standards of the USPS own HIPP.”
