Florida workers died in the heat. Their deaths were kept from authorities

December 14, 2024

A Times investigation found twice as many workers have died across the state from heat than officials know.

It felt like 100 degrees on the job site by late afternoon.

“Truly unbearable,” was how Jonathan Baudilio Ramirez Salazar described Florida’s weather when he spoke to his wife on the phone the night before.

He’d worked one day in the thick July heat as a temporary laborer on a Fort Myers landscaping crew for TruScapes Industries Inc.

“Don’t go to work tomorrow,” his wife told him.

“My love, I didn’t come here to rest,” the 31-year-old said from his hotel. “I came here to work — I need to get used to it.”

Ramirez was far from home, a one-bedroom his family of five shared in Guatemala. He missed the chilly breeze descending each evening in Santa Cruz Naranjo.

But in Guatemala, he made about $150 a month. For years, he’d dreamed of working in the U.S. to save for a bigger home and his children’s studies. In 2022, he came to Florida.

On Ramirez’s second day with TruScapes, he worked outside an apartment complex. The weather reached 89 degrees by midmorning.

By 3 p.m., it was 92.

With humidity, it felt like 102.

As the shift wore on, coworkers noticed Ramirez seemed unwell. He skipped lunch but kept working — until he couldn’t any longer.

His coworkers discovered him on his knees in a wooded area behind the complex around 4:40 p.m. He appeared to be seizing. His skin was hot. His heartbeat faint. Vomit lodged in his throat.

When paramedics arrived, his body temperature was above 110 degrees.

Ramirez died of heatstroke, according to medical examiner records. From his exposure on the job.

Workplace regulators, however, didn’t investigate what happened. That’s because TruScapes didn’t tell them he’d died.

Florida banned local governments from providing increased oversight for workers exposed to high temperatures earlier this year, saying businesses and federal regulators alone could keep laborers safe.

But the Tampa Bay Times found far more workers have died from heat across the state than authorities even know.

The missing deaths bring recorded heat fatalities in Florida to at least 37 over the past decade — double the number federal regulators had tallied during the same period.

Employers are supposed to notify the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which oversees worker safety, about employee deaths within hours. OSHA has fined six businesses in the state after discovering they didn’t follow the rule when workers died from heat.

The Times identified 19 additional heat-related deaths kept from the agency.

Taken together, the Times found that Florida companies have failed to report the vast majority of heat fatalities as required.

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