Tragedy strikes immigrant family again – KIRO 7 News Seattle

ST. PAUL, Ore. – (AP) – On his 38th birthday, Sebastian Francisco Perez, an immigrant from Guatemala, played chess with his nephew. The next day he was working in a kindergarten in a rural Oregon town when the thermometer rose well above 37.8 degrees Celsius.

Perez collapsed that day, June 26, as a heat wave heated the Pacific Northwest at record temperatures ever. The workers had laid irrigation lines when they noticed Perez was gone and found him. They called his nephew, Pedro Lucas, who found his uncle unconscious and dying.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate him, but Perez failed. An Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division database listed his death as heat-related.

Hundreds of people are said to have died in the historic heat wave in Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia from Friday to Tuesday. Perez’s death underscores the dangers farm workers, most of them immigrants, face when working in the hot sun, pouring rain and snow, and often driving to construction sites in vans.

In 2019, two of Lucas’ cousins ​​and a third person were killed when a pickup truck crashed into a delivery truck near Salem, Oregon, bringing them and 10 other Guatemalans home from work on a Christmas tree farm.

The fact that tragedy struck Lucas’ family again leaves him in disbelief.

“I don’t understand the things that happen sometimes,” Lucas said in Spanish in a telephone interview.

Last time he used donations to pay for a funeral home to have the bodies of his two cousins ​​and the other man returned to Guatemala from Oregon.

Lucas said the family was waiting for an autopsy report on Perez. Lucas said Perez had worked in the heat before and did well.

Perez had previously lived in the United States and returned about four months ago. He supported his wife, who was staying at home in Ixcan, Guatemala, a city near the Mexican border.

“He loved being in the United States,” said Lucas. “The economy in Guatemala is not doing well. There is a lot of poverty, so you take care of your well-being and your future. “

Reyna Lopez, executive director of a northwest farm workers union, known by her Spanish-speaking initials PCUN, called the death “shameful” and accused both the nursery and Oregon OSHA for failing to put emergency rules in place before the heat wave.

Spokesman Aaron Corvin said Oregon OSHA is exploring “the introduction of emergency requirements and we are continuing to hold discussions with employee and employer stakeholders.”

He added that employers are required to provide adequate water, shade, extra breaks and training on heat hazards.

An executive order passed in March 2020 by Oregon Governor Kate Brown would formalize workers’ protection from heat, but it’s too late for Perez. Brown’s order focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and calls on the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon OSHA to jointly propose standards to protect workers from excessive heat and forest fire smoke.

They had until June 30 to submit proposals, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the two agencies requested to postpone the deadline to September.

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Selsky reported from Salem, Oregon.

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Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky

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