Not The Onion

"Mother of Gabriel Infante, 24, sues employer for $1m, saying construction workers had no protections from extreme heat.

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.

According to the lawsuit, Infante began exhibiting heatstroke symptoms including confusion, altered mental state, dizziness and loss of consciousness. His friend and co-worker Joshua Espinoza began pouring cold water over him, trying to cool him down. A foreman insisted Espinoza call the police, claiming Infante’s bizarre behavior was due to drugs, and the foreman pushed for a drug test when emergency medical services arrived

Infante later died in a hospital from severe heatstroke and had a recorded internal temperature of 109.8F (43.2C). The Center for Disease Control states a body temperature of 103F (39.4C) or higher is a main symptom of heatstroke.

“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.”"

Rip Gabriel Infante. What happened to you was unfair.