A Phoenix UPS delivery man was filmed collapsing with heat exhaustion on a doorbell camera as Heat Deaths im Arizona City more than quadrupled in three years.
In the video, provided KPNXthe unnamed driver, dressed in the UPS uniform of dark brown shorts and short-sleeved shirt, enters the shady Scottsdale portico of Brian Enriquez, who is trudging his feet, a padded envelope in hand.
When he gets to the door, he bends down to place the package on the floor and then falls to the floor. The messenger sits in front of him with his legs apart for a moment and cannot raise his head.
After a few smacks, the driver is able to get up and ring the front doorbell, then saunter unsteadily out of frame.
“I was worried about him stumbling towards the door,” Enriquez told KPNX News in Mesa. “Had I gotten to my phone sooner I could have spoken to him through my ring, but he was already off the property by that point.”
The homeowner called the police to see if they could help. UPS later confirmed that the driver was not seriously injured and had recovered from his fall.
A UPS driver tripped and fell into the portico of Brian Enriquez in Scottsdale, Arizona, who called police for help
The delivery man put the package on the ground next to the front door and then collapsed
The UPS driver recovered after a moment, got up, and sauntered away
Brian Enriquez, pictured, told 12News that after seeing the recording he called the police to see if they could help the driver
In 2022, 17 Maricopa County residents have died, and a staggering 126 other deaths are believed to have been caused by the heat
UPS told the news agency the driver was “doing fine” and had been trained to deal with extreme temperatures, like the type Phoenix that is in Maricopa County.
“UPS drivers are trained to work outdoors and the effects of hot weather,” it said in a statement. ‘Our employee used his training to become aware of his situation and asked for help from his manager, who immediately provided help.’
The parcel company admitted its drivers spend most of their working hours in the blazing sun.
When temperatures rise above 100 degrees, deaths also rise, according to this chart from Maricopa County
Most people who succumb to heat death are men between the ages of 35 and 44
“Our parcel delivery vehicles make frequent stops, which renders the air conditioning ineffective,” the company said.
In 2019, an NBC revelation found that 107 UPS workers in 23 counties had been hospitalized since 2015.
The thermometer in Maricopa stayed in the triple digits all month, with mercury peaking at 115 degrees on July 11. Night lows linger at a mild 88 degrees.
Across the country, more than 100 million Americans braced for a heatwave in the central and southwestern states.
The effects of the extreme weather were deadly.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, high heat can cause the body’s natural cooling systems to fail, leading to peak core temperatures that damage vital organs, including the brain.
If the environment does not cool down in the evening, the body will struggle to recover.
Heat-related deaths in Maricopa, Arizona’s largest county, have hit a six-month record with 17 such deaths reported in the first week of July and another 126 being investigated.
“For most years, Phoenix has had the highest per capita rate of heat-related deaths in the county — a position we’d like to change,” the city’s director of heat mitigation, David Hondula, told 12News.
The higher numbers come as more homeless people live exposed outdoors in the arid desert city.
Other cities in the US and around the world are also sweating from earlier, more intense and longer-lasting heatwaves that scientists attribute to the global warning. Europe is currently being hit by record temperatures, with London officials urging people to stay home and wildfires raging in Spain, France and elsewhere.
About two-thirds of heat-related deaths in the Phoenix metro area this year involved people who were outdoors, according to the latest statistics from the Maricopa County Department of Health.
Heat-related deaths in the first half far exceed those observed in the county over the same period in previous years.
In the first six months of 2021 there have been 11 such deaths, with 107 others under investigation; four during this period in 2020, with another 48 under investigation; and three in 2019, with another 27 under investigation.
The United States is bracing for another heatwave, due to begin today, with more than 100 million Americans under severe weather warnings and temperatures expected to rise to 113 Fahrenheit in parts of Texas and Oklahoma. Pictured: A National Weather Service map showing daily highs across America for Tuesday
The health department reported 339 heat-related deaths for all of 2021.
Maricopa County, with a population of 4.4 million, is the blazing hot center of extreme heat in the United States. Temperatures can soar above 100 by March and stay there through October, according to the county health department.
The area typically has 110 days above 100 degrees and about 26 days when it gets above 110 degrees. The county has an average of two weeks a year when the nighttime temperature doesn’t drop below 90 degrees.
The county’s latest data comes amid a surge in the number of homeless people living on the streets in the greater Phoenix area, which includes Scottsdale.
More than 1,000 homeless people are currently sleeping in tents in downtown Phoenix, in addition to the hundreds filling nearby shelters.
To prevent more heat-related deaths, Phoenix and Maricopa County this year joined local nonprofits to outfit a 200-bed summer shelter in an unused government building east of downtown.
