SACRAMENTO BEE

August 23, 2008

Coroner confirms: Heat killed farmworker

By Susan Ferriss

The Kern County Coroner has confirmed that heat stress caused the July 9 death of Abdon Felix, 42, who was loading table grapes for much of the day in a Bakersfield area vineyard. Temperatures that day reached 108 degrees.

California occupational safety specialists - who were studying the fatality as possibly heat-related - will continue to investigate the circumstances of Felix's death and his working conditions, Cal-OSHA spokeswoman Erika Monterrosa said on Friday.

Abdon was a passenger in a company truck on its way to a cold storage warehouse in the late afternoon when a co-worker noticed he began to gasp, Monterrosa said. An ambulance was summoned, but Abdon could not be revived, and he died at an area hospital. He was paid by the box to load newly harvested grapes for Sunview Vineyards, based in Arvin.