Farmworker Heatstroke Cases Expose a Deadly Gap in US Heat Protections

On 19 July 2022, Carlos Vargas Moreno and other farm workers set out to weed a watermelon field in Goldsboro, North Carolina. The temperature stood at 90F (32C) at 4pm, and the heat index reached 98.3F. Within two hours, Vargas Moreno collapsed in the field.

Today, the 38-year-old cannot walk or care for himself. His case shows what happens when no federal or state standard protects farm workers from dangerous heat. It also shows how little accountability follows when an employer fails to act.

A Preventable Collapse in a North Carolina Field

The work day began at 7am and included two 15-minute breaks and a one-hour lunch that workers ate outdoors. A heat safety app from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health labeled those conditions “hazardous” for outdoor workers. The heat index measures what the temperature feels like to the human body when humidity combines with air temperature.

Court documents, government records, and testimony from workers present that day describe the moment of collapse. Just before 6pm, Vargas Moreno paused to drink water. A few seconds later, he staggered and fell. He later received a diagnosis of heatstroke.

Heatstroke is preventable, and it should have weighed on his employer’s mind. The company, Florida Orange Gold, had already lost a worker to the condition. Almost exactly two years earlier, Carmen Sebastian Hernandez Mosqueda died from heatstroke while weeding a North Carolina field.

Records show the employer twice failed to put many basic safety measures in place. Those measures included on-site supervision and access to timely emergency medical care.

A Family’s Life Changes Overnight

Ever since “the accident,” everything about Vargas Moreno’s life has changed, said his wife, Daysi Romero Arellano. The word “accident” softens the reality. The heatstroke caused a brain injury and disability, and he now uses a wheelchair.

Romero Arellano bathes her husband, dresses him, helps him use the restroom, and feeds him. The brain injury also left him with cognitive and linguistic deficits, so he cannot verbally describe the facts of his own case. His family is now telling its story as it adjusts to a changed life in North Carolina.

“Nothing is the same,” Romero Arellano said through an interpreter during an August interview.

She sat next to him and lovingly rubbed his head as she spoke. Verdad, Carlos? she asked him, which means “Isn’t that right?” He locked eyes with his wife and nodded.

No Federal Shield for Workers in the Fields

His case is not an outlier. On any given summer day, most of the nation’s farmworkers earn pay based on productivity and grind through searing heat to harvest as much as possible before day’s end. Taking a break to cool down, or even a moment to chug water, often isn’t an option. The law doesn’t require it, so few farms offer it.

The problem is most acute in the Deep South, where weather and politics can be equally brutal toward the people who pick the country’s food. Among those who labor outdoors, agricultural workers enjoy the least protection. Despite record summer heat, the United States still lacks a federal standard governing workplace exposure to extreme temperatures.

OSHA says it has opened more than 4,500 heat-related inspections since March 2022. The agency, however, does not have data on worker deaths from heat-related illnesses. Meanwhile, extreme heat killed at least 436 workers of all kinds and sickened 34,000 more between 2011 and 2021.

Most states, particularly those led by Republicans, are loath to institute their own heat standards even as conditions worsen. That reluctance leaves the burden on workers and on the advocates who fight for them.

Organizers Take Heat Education to the Fields

Some things are improving as organizers like Leonel Perez head into the fields. They tell farmworkers, and the people who employ them, about the risks of heat exposure. They also stress the need to take breaks, drink water, and recognize the signs of heat exhaustion.

“The workers themselves are never in a position where they’ve been expecting something like this,” Perez said through a translator. “If we say, ‘Hey, you have the right to go and take a break when you need one,’ it’s not something that they’re accustomed to hearing or that they necessarily trust right away.”

Perez works as an educator with the Fair Food Program, a worker-led human rights campaign. Founded in 2011 to protect workers from forced labor, sexual harassment, and other abuses, it has steadily expanded from its base in southern Florida. It now reaches farms in 10 states, Mexico, Chile, and South Africa. More recently, it has taken on the urgent job of helping workers cope with ever-hotter conditions.

In place of government regulation, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, through the program, adopted stringent heat protocols. Those protocols require regular breaks and access to water and shade. Basic as they sound, these measures were missing on the day Vargas Moreno collapsed.

Maryland’s Long Reliance on Migrant Labor

The same pressures shape farm labor far from the Carolinas. In Maryland, agriculture ranks as the state’s second largest industry, with an estimated value of $8.25 billion a year. A University of Maryland digital project, published in October 2024, traces how that industry has always relied on labor that was controlled, surveilled, and exploited. Those workers faced harsh working and living conditions, and they included enslaved people, Black tenant farmers, German prisoners of World War II, and today’s migrant and seasonal farmworkers.

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers come to Maryland from Latin America, including Mexico, and from the Caribbean, including Haiti and Jamaica. They arrive through the Eastern Migratory Stream, the H2A guest work visa program, or both. The state’s Department of Labor counts fewer than 1,000 such workers in its fields during the growing season. Other studies estimate that up to 7,500 workers arrive each year to harvest crops and work in orchards and nursery farms.

Because so many workers come from out of state, their living conditions at employer-run labor camps have long been a problem. The project examines Westover, one of Maryland’s largest migrant labor camps, in Somerset County. It also highlights a lesser-known site, the Tiny Blue Houses in Caroline County. Observers have called Westover the “Hilton of Labor Camps” despite its notorious history of human rights violations.

What the Gap in Protection Costs

The stories from North Carolina, the Deep South, and Maryland point to the same conclusion. Workers who feed the country often labor in dangerous heat with no guaranteed right to water, shade, or rest. Where voluntary programs exist, they can fill part of the gap, but they reach only some farms.

For Carlos Vargas Moreno, the cost is permanent. His wife now provides round-the-clock care for a man who once worked the fields. Without enforceable standards, advocates warn, the same preventable tragedy can repeat on the next hot day.