Gabriel showed clear signs of heatstroke, including confusion, altered mental state, dizziness, and loss of consciousness. His friend and co-worker, Joshua Espinoza, tried his best to help by pouring cold water over him to cool him down. But unfortunately, things took a wrong turn when the foreman insisted that Gabriel's behavior was due to drugs and demanded a drug test when emergency medical services arrived.
On that fateful day, San Antonio experienced scorching temperatures exceeding 100F, with humidity levels reaching as high as 75%.
Despite efforts to save him, Gabriel passed away in the hospital due to severe heatstroke. His internal temperature had reached a shocking 109.8F, well above the critical threshold of 103F that the Center for Disease Control considers a major symptom of heatstroke.
Understandably, Gabriel's mother is outraged by the circumstances surrounding her son's death, leading her to file a lawsuit against his employer.
From The Guardian:
The lawsuit comes after Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed a controversial bill into law on 14 June that prohibits local municipalities from enacting heat protection standards for construction workers. The bill nullifies ordinances previously passed in Austin and Dallas that mandated 10-minute breaks for workers every four hours. A similar ordinance was being considered in San Antonio before the state bill was passed.
Since her son’s death, Infante said, she panics and suffers from anxiety if her kids don’t return phone calls right away.
“We have difficult days; I have difficult days. When I go out in public I put on a different face because when I get home it’s all there waiting for me. It just consumes me. I don’t sleep. I cry, I eat and I eat junk food,” added Infante. “I don’t understand how they can allow these people to work out in this type of heat, I’ve seen so many deaths already, in different fields that you start to think what are these companies thinking?”
She explained the recent heatwaves in Texas had hit her hard because they bring back emotions about what her son experienced in the extreme heat and that Gabriel’s best friends had recently graduated from University of Texas-San Antonio, where Gabriel was also attending at the time, and attending their graduation parties was painful.
“All I did was cry that evening. I was happy for him, but my son wasn’t going to be able to do the same thing,” said Infante. “He’s never going to finish school, he’s not going to graduate, he’s not going to get married, he’s not going to give me the grandbabies that I want. He was a jokester, he was quiet, he was laid-back like his dad, and he would give you the shirt off his back.”
Your heart truly aches for this grieving mother who has suffered the shocking loss of her son.
It's baffling that the Texas government would actively undermine the safety of construction workers. Why would Abbott pass a law that puts their well-being at risk? Could it be solely to boost construction productivity, even at the expense of workers' lives?
It's truly inhumane, and if this trend continues, Gabriel's tragic death won't be an isolated incident.
