A worker-led project documenting Texas occupational heat deaths
HEAThens Against HEAT
Heathens, noun:
The workers who build, feed, fix, and keep Texas running in the heat.The workers who refuse to be treated as disposable.
Texas won’t count its workers killed by heat — so we do.
Every case in this archive was found the hard way — dug out of OSHA records and news reports — because no state system counts heat deaths properly. They get coded as cardiac arrest or “natural causes.”
We count them. We tell their stories. And we push for a state where the counting becomes the state’s job.
Verified against OSHA records & named media reporting
What happened in the heat?
A close call. A coworker who collapsed. Someone you lost. Your account can reveal the danger official records miss — and help make sure another worker is counted.
About
HEAThens Against HEAT is a worker-led project started by a Texas HVAC man who got tired of waiting for someone to count the workers the heat kills. Texas and heat are synonymous — Texas should be at the forefront of understanding the challenge, and the heat is getting worse. So we count the dead, we tell their stories, and we push for a state that counts them too.
— from a guy who crawls in attics.