City of Baltimore, DPW cited for "serious" violation after heat death of worker
MOSH began its investigation into DPW following the death of Ronald Silver II. Silver died of heatstroke on August 2, 2024, while working in temperatures approaching 100 degrees.
According to MOSH's citation, DPW did not "furnish a place of employment free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees, in that employees were exposed to excessive heat."
On Aug. 2, the date of the violation, the department said employees were working in direct sunlight when the calculated heat index reached approximately 108.6° Fahrenheit. Those conditions can cause muscle cramps, rashes, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and death, MOSH said in its report.
While the citation does not come with a financial penalty, it requires Baltimore City officials to correct the problem and show remediation of the dangerous conditions by March 17.
The violation is classified as "serious," which indicates that the violation involves a condition where there is a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from the hazard, per the citation.
Death of Ronald Silver II
The death of Ronald Silver II sparked outrage from Baltimore City leaders, who said DPW had a "toxic" work culture. Silver's family told WJZ that DPW had been warned about employee safety during extreme heat.
Thiru Vinerjah, the attorney for Silver's family, called for accountability in a press conference after Silver's death.
Those calls for accountability culminated in a report by the Office of the Inspector General, which said that an investigation revealed a negative work culture and concerns for worker safety and morale that have persisted for the "last decade" at DPW.
Mayor Scott responds to DPW concerns.
Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott addressed the OIG's report last week, saying that the problems at DPW pre-dated his administration.
"We're talking about historic levels of disinvestment and not having the protocols and practices in place, and that's why we have the leadership--and that's why we have been proactively starting to work on these things," Scott said. "I'm not going to be happy until the work is complete, but I also know this is not overnight work."
According to the Baltimore Banner, Scott said last week that the city has "a long, long, long way to go" to improve conditions at DPW.
He also said work to address the problems at DPW has already begun with the creation of a new deputy mayor role, which will oversee key city agencies, including DPW.
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Atlantic
6 hours ago
- Atlantic
‘We Are Sentenced to Live Like This'
Asala Ferany sat cross-legged inside her tent in a camp near Deir al-Balah, trying to soothe her youngest child. Nada, barely more than a year old, clung to her mother's neck with tiny, weak arms. The midday heat, nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit, seeped through the plastic tarp above them. Sweat trickled down Asala's face, and she had to leave the tent to get some air. Nada hadn't eaten since the night before, and the only thing left to feed her was a sachet of peanut paste—one of the last things Asala had managed to bring back from the aid-distribution point that morning. 'This is all I have,' she whispered, tearing a corner of the foil packet and squeezing a bit onto her finger. 'I wish I could give her more, but there is nothing left.' That morning, Asala and her husband, Mohammad Ferwana, had gone for the third or fourth time in a month to an aid center in Deir al-Balah, hoping to get their daughter additional treatment or food. 'The people in the camp look at Nada,' Asala told me. 'They say, 'She is too small. Take care of her. She's too beloved.' Some even say she might not survive two more months. I keep hugging her, kissing her. So if I lose her—I'll know I loved her enough.' Last month, Asala told me, she took Nada to a government-run health clinic that referred her to a distribution center run by aid groups. There, aid workers encircled Nada's arm with paper tape, taking a measurement known as the mid-upper arm circumference that's commonly used to assess malnutrition. As of last Wednesday, Nada's upper arm measured 4.4 inches—meeting the threshold for severe, acute malnutrition. The aid workers gave Asala 14 red sachets of 'ready-to-use therapeutic food' (RUTF), a nutrient-dense, high-calorie paste designed to manage wasting in children. That wasn't enough. 'I asked if we could have more,' Asala told me. 'But they just shook their heads. There are too many children. Too many mothers asking.' When Asala got back to the tent, she quickly tucked the RUTF beneath her clothes. Her other children tended to eye the packets hungrily, and she needed to make sure that Nada, who needed them most, got her share. All of her children were thin, their ribs visible, but Nada was fading the fastest. By early afternoon, the camp had gone quiet with hunger. Then, at 1 p.m., a black tuk-tuk rattled down the sandy path between tents. Word spread fast: The tikkiyya, a community kitchen offered by the World Central Kitchen or sometimes by other volunteers and charitable initiatives, had come. Two dented metal pots sat on the back of the tuk-tuk, filled with hot mujaddara, a simple mix of brown lentils and white rice, stripped of onions or other seasonings that have become unaffordable. Children rushed from every direction toward the sound. Suhaib, Asala's eldest at age 9, was already running, a metal pot clanging in his hands. Asala followed close behind. She told me that she accompanied her children to the tikkiya in case their pots tipped or one of them got burned. 'It happens. On lentils day, the pots were boiling, and my child was burnt.' When they got to the front of the line, she pleaded with the aid worker for an extra portion. 'They gave two scoops,' she told him. 'It's not enough for seven people.' He looked away, toward the others still waiting for their ladlefuls. In addition to Suhaib and Nada, Asala has 7-year-old Layan, 4-year-old Yusuf, and 2-and-a-half-year-old Ibrahim. Back at the tent, she gathered them in a tight circle to eat their only meal of the day. 'I cannot dare leave one sleeping,' she told me. 'Last time, Yusuf napped through the meal. He woke up and found nothing. He cried the rest of the day.' Inside their tent, once this meal is done, there is no other food at all. Even baby Nada's milk bottles sit empty, lined up beside other barren utensils. Mohammad, who once worked as a metalsmith in his father's workshop, now finds himself unable to afford the most basic essentials. In the markets, staples such as eggs, milk, beef, and chicken have all but vanished. For what little remains, the prices are staggering. A kilogram of flour (approximately 2.2 pounds) now costs 120 shekels (approximately $32.50), the same price as a kilogram of tomatoes. Even eggplants—once a modest, accessible item—are selling for 100 shekels (about $27.00) per kilogram. Nada weighs only 16.5 pounds. She was born under bombardment in May 2024, weighing just 4.5 pounds. 'We named her after her grandmother,' Mohammad told me. 'Her name means 'dewdrops' in Arabic. Something small, pure, and gentle. But nothing about her life has been gentle.' The family reuses Nada's diapers, cleaning them with rations of water. With poor nutrition, she easily picks up diseases. 'She had fever, flu, diarrhea. I said maybe it's teething. But she's not recovering,' Asala told me. 'We have no medicine. Even soap has vanished. Doctors said, with these conditions, it is hard to recover, since the immune system is weak and vulnerable.' The family has been displaced five times—from Wadi As-Salqa, southeast of Deir al-Balah, to a school on Salah al-Din road; then to Mashala, west of Deir al-Balah; to Khan Younis; and now to a makeshift tent in the middle of Deir al-Balah. Their shelter is a patch of plastic and tarp held down by rocks, near the edge of a displacement zone in southwest Deir al-Balah, where Israel was engaged in a military operation from July 20 to 22. 'Shrapnel has come to us,' Asala told me. A child in the next tent was injured. 'I worry every day they will order us to leave again,' she said. 'Where will we go?' Asala told me that her children still remember the old days, and the tastes of foods she used to cook. 'Fridays used to be family days,' Asala remembers. 'My husband brought fish. We cooked chicken. The children remind me of that.' Suhaib used to excel in school. He still asks for a laptop—just to learn on it. Layan talks about university. In the late evening, Asala's children again started asking about food. She tried to hush Nada with water, and to distract the others, telling them that the tikkiya might come again tomorrow, or the camp committee might give them something. In past weeks, Asala would sometimes walk to her neighbor's tents to ask if anyone had a spare loaf of bread. The answer was almost always 'no.' Now and then Mohammad hears about aid trucks passing through the border to supply organizations such as the World Food Program. He joins the crowds of men who follow these trucks, but he often returns empty-handed. At times, Asala has followed him secretly. 'I just want to bring something home,' she told me. She described a dangerous scramble, crowds swelling with desperation: 'Some bring sticks. Some guns.' Once, her husband returned with a few cans of tomato paste he found on the ground, crushed under people's feet. 'They were cracked open and mixed with sand. I took it anyway.' The scene around the airdrops can be equally abject. On Wednesday, Suhaib and Yusuf ran toward a descending parachute, yelling: 'Throw something here! Throw something here!' Nothing came. Asala chased it, too. 'I left the tent. I wasn't thinking. I ran barefoot. When I reached where it fell, it was gone. This is what they've turned us into,' she said. 'I felt humiliated. We are sentenced to live like this.'
CNN
13 hours ago
- CNN
A warmer, humid world where ticks thrive is increasing spread of Lyme and other diseases
This year, people are seeking emergency care for tick bites in the highest level since 2017, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and reported cases of Lyme disease have continued to rise through the years. Experts say the increases are driven by warmer temperatures due to climate change and the expanding presence of ticks in more areas in the US and Canada — including places where people are less familiar with the risks and how to prevent disease. 'When we first started doing this [in the mid-1980s], there were very few cases of Lyme disease reported in Canada. Lyme disease is pretty well established in Canada at this point,' said Dr. Thomas Daniels, the director of the Louis Calder Center, Fordham University's biological field station. Lyme disease-carrying deer ticks are mostly active when temperatures are above 45 degrees Fahrenheit, and they thrive in areas with at least 85% humidity, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. 'It likes to be in humid areas, not wet areas, but humid areas,' said Daniels. 'If you sample on a lawn that gets baked in the sun all day, you're not going to find ticks. You go 20 feet into the woods where it's shady and the temperature's generally lower and there's more ground cover, you will find ticks.' The threat from ticks and mosquitoes, which drive transmission of diseases such as West Nile, dengue and malaria, is already increasing. 'Because of increases in temperature that we've already seen, because of human impacts on the climate, the temperature is already getting more suitable for transmission of disease here in the United States and North America,' Dr. Erin Mordecai, an associate professor of biology at Stanford University, said at a news briefing on Monday. And while climate change is contributing to the expansion of tick habitats, it's not the sole driver. Human changes to landscapes also shape where ticks are found. 'It's never just one factor, right?' Dr. Jean Tsao, a professor at Michigan State University who studies disease ecology, said at a news briefing. 'In the continental US, most of the changes in the range is probably due to land use change affecting wildlife communities. Also management of wildlife populations, such as the white-tailed deer. That plays a major role for many of these ticks.' Deer ticks, also known as black-legged ticks, are the primacy ticks that carry Lyme disease. During the nymph stage, when they are most active, the ticks are about the size of a poppy seed and are easy to miss. As they feed on blood, they can transmit pathogens, including the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease. This transmission occurs through the tick's saliva, which enters the host's bloodstream during feeding. Brian Fallon, director of the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at Columbia University, told CNN on Friday that infection can cause a range of multisystem symptoms. Once in the bloodstream, the bacteria can go to various parts of the body including the heart, central nervous system, the brain or peripheral nerves. The onset of Lyme disease may also present in different ways. 'Most people think of the Lyme rash as a bull's-eye target rash. In fact, that's not the most common presentation,' said Fallon. 'The most common presentation is more of a pinkish, reddish rash. But the main thing is that it expands in size from a small rash to five centimeters or larger.' Fallon notes that some people may also see more than one rash on different parts of their body. As the disease develops without treatment, more serious symptoms may emerge. Symptoms may last for months or even years, said Fallon. 'It's recognized mainly by the rash early on, if you're lucky enough to see it, and then later, by symptoms such as the neurologic symptoms that may manifest as a facial palsy or a meningitis causing severe headaches with stiff neck or shooting pains or severe stabbing pains,' Fallon said. There may be cardiac symptoms such as palpitations or slow rhythms; muscle pain and fatigue. 'It can be profoundly debilitating,' he said. Daniels says that although there are measures that can be taken to decrease the likelihood of a tick bite, prevention methods are not foolproof. The most important protection against Lyme disease is tick removal as soon as possible, he said. 'The key is to get the tick off you as quickly as possible. None of these [tick-borne] pathogens are transmitted very quickly, except for Powassan virus, which can be transmitted in as little as 15 minutes. But the infection rate for [humans] is very, very low,' said Daniels. 'For Lyme disease, you've got a 24 to 48 hour window of opportunity there to get the tick off, because it takes some time for the tick to gear up through its feeding to actually transmit the bacteria.' Daniels advises people to wear more clothes in the summertime. 'The longer we can keep the tick on the outside of our bodies and not on our skin, the less likely it is to find a place to attach.' Clothes can also be treated with permethrin, an insecticide that repels ticks. When hiking, Fallon advises people to stay on the trail, as ticks roam in leafy areas and wood piles. Daniels advises people to conduct a 'tick check' for themselves and each other if they're in an area with ticks. 'It's helpful because the ticks may go behind your knee, or they may go and bite you in the back, and you can't see your back or reach your back. Take a shower at the end of the day, because that may help to wash off some ticks that haven't fully attached yet,' he said. If a tick is attached for a prolonged period of time, Fallon says that it would gradually 'blow as big as a raisin' from continuously sucking blood. If you do find a tick, experts advise people to use tweezers to take out the tick from underneath its body. 'Don't try to burn it off with a cigarette. Don't try to put anything toxic on it. Remove it with a tweezer,' he said.
Newsweek
4 days ago
- Newsweek
Horror as Woman Returns to 100F Car After Hours, Realizes Who Was Inside
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. A heartbreaking scare involving a cat sneaking into a car and being left in there for hours when it was 100 degrees outside is serving as a reminder for pet parents to take extra precautions in extreme heat. Kadyn Shelby said they received a worried call from their mother who lives about an hour away, about one of the cats, Ditto. This cat follows Shelby's mom everywhere. However, that habit led the feline into the car without Shelby's mother realizing. "She had went to get her laptop from her truck earlier in the day, and didn't realize Ditto had jumped in," Shelby told Newsweek via Reddit. "...My mom said Ditto had been in there for seven or eight hours, and when she went to the truck to grab something else, she found Ditto panting heavily and limp on the floor next to the pedals with vomit and feces around her." Temperatures hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit that entire week in Arkansas, Shelby said. Car interiors can reach dangerously hot temperatures as they can trap superheated air, endangering people and pets if left inside for too long. Panic overcame Shelby's mother about what to do, especially as all the local veterinarian clinics were closed by 7 p.m. Shelby then posted a video of Ditto's condition last week to the subreddit channel r/CATHELP, asking for advice on how to help cool down the cat until the feline could see a vet. The family got in contact with a local vet they have become well-acquainted with who suggested they give Ditto small amounts of water manually every other minute. To increase her energy levels, give her a bit of honey. "I told my mom to put cool, not cold, water on Ditto's paws, and put a cool rag underneath her, too," Shelby said. Shelby, their brother and mother stayed with Ditto throughout the night, manually giving her water through a pipette. Eventually, she cooled down, but she became a bit too cold, which is when Shelby sought advice from Reddit. The family kept doing what they were doing, with the doctor offering to see her as soon as she could in the morning if Ditto made it through the night. "Somehow, Ditto started to slowly inch herself more and more upwards and even drank on her own!" Shelby said. "I made update posts since, showing her slow improvements over the next 24 hours. We were genuinely so hopeful when she started drinking on her own, but we still were clenched in case the worst happened." But the worst was over. She turned a corner and began walking throughout the night. She jumped from the bathroom counter and used the litter box. Ditto even ate again. Ditto received IV fluids and antibiotics first thing in the morning when the vet clinic opened. The doctor recommended keeping her hydrated and inside. Thankfully, every day since the accident, Ditto has gotten stronger. She now plays, purrs, rolls over and suckles on blankets, Shelby said. The only thing she hates is that she is still not allowed outside. Shelby and their mother are thinking of giving her a "catio," which will help regulate Ditto's time outside, especially as the state's weather fluctuates. Screenshot from a Reddit video of a cat's condition after being accidentally left in a car for about seven to eight hours in 100 degree weather. Screenshot from a Reddit video of a cat's condition after being accidentally left in a car for about seven to eight hours in 100 degree weather. crunchiestmilk/Reddit Reddit Users React Shelby said Reddit users first flooded their posts with negative feedback, claiming they were animal abusers. But they discovered many pet parents have gone through similar situations. "...Overall, it's been a generously kind and heartwarming moment in the community," Shelby said. "Lots have been hoping for Ditto to make a quick recovery, and she is. I've been showing my mom all the love and support that she's been getting, and my grandma calls Ditto the superstar of the family now." One Reddit user commented: "Sweetheart, I'd like to give you a hug and remind you to breathe. You're doing the absolute best you can. No one could do more. Just get that baby to 7 a.m. if you can." Another user added: "I'm so sorry this happened. Years ago, I made a mistake that ended up with one of my babies not making it and it haunts me to this day. I pray that things will go better for y'all. But even if they don't, please let your mother know that accidents happen."
