ASSOCIATED PRESS

May 18, 2007

State looks into working conditions of deceased farmworker

The state is investigating the death of a man who died of a suspected heat-related illness after picking fruit in an orchard outside the city, officials said Thursday.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health is probing whether labor contractor YNT Harvesting provided enough shade and breaks to Eladio Hernandez, 54, of Mexico, who collapsed May 9 next to a packinghouse, said the agency's spokesman Dean Fryer.

Hernandez started feeling ill while he was picking apricots, but his foreman ignored his complaints, said Armando Elenes, an organizer with the United Farm Workers of America. Only after he fell off a ladder was he allowed to sit under a tree, and hours later the foreman dropped him off at the open-air sorting facility where he died, he said.

"This is just a tragic death that didn't need to happen if the foreman had gone through and taken the proper measures immediately after being notified that the worker was sick," Elenes said.

The coroner has not yet determined the cause of death, but authorities suspect it was heat-related, Fryer said.

"We need to look at the steps the employer took that day," Fryer said. "Shade from trees is not good enough. We need to have something that completely blocks the sun."