The latest Baltimore City’s Inspector General’s report found that Ronald Silver II had been experiencing symptoms of heat-related illness for at least two days before he died.

Inspector General Isabel Cumming’s office reviewed logs from Workday, the city’s personnel management system, alongside extensive interviews with supervisors and laborers at the Baltimore City Department of Public Works.

Silver died around 5 p.m. on August 2nd at Union Memorial Hospital after he collapsed and received emergency care on Guilford Avenue. He had been working since eight o’clock that morning on a day when Baltimore City had declared a Code Red Heat emergency: “real feel” temperatures that day reached around 108°F, according to weather reports.

On August 1st, the day before he died, Silver received a call from a supervisor asking him if he would be coming into work to which Silver responded he had been having cramps the night before and felt “unwell.” The supervisor directed Silver to “stay home and hydrate” and he was marked for a “safe and sick day” although records reviewed by the OIG showed inconsistencies as to whether Silver actually stayed home from work.

Temperatures on July 31st — the night Silver said he had cramping — hovered around 95°F. The OIG found that on that day Silver’s crew started and worked late due to staffing issues, placing a large portion of their workday during what would typically be the day’s hottest hours.

Another crew member who worked with Silver on the day he died reported that the air conditioning in the truck they drove did “not have a cooling effect.” Travis Christman, Silver’s crew mate, also experienced heat sickness that day. According to DPW records, the route Silver and Christman worked on that 108°F day had 1,153 stops: the industry standard is 950 stops, according to research conducted by the OIG.

At the time Silver died, independent investigations revealed the department had no occupational heat standard in place and OIG Cumming found that Silver’s direct supervisors themselves did not have heat training.

“One of the key elements of the standard that Maryland OSHA is enacting is the importance of training workers on the early signs of heat stress, so they recognize early so it doesn't turn into a fatal instance,” said Debbie Berkowitz, a labor policy fellow at Georgetown University and a former chief of staff for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “Heat illness can progress from sort of being nauseous and dizzy, and into a full life and death situation very quickly.”

That Maryland heat standard had not been passed when Silver died, it came into effect nearly two months later.

During a March 20th hearing, DPW Director Khalil Zaied reported that the agency would have a heat plan finalized within the month.

In a response to the OIG’s latest report, Zaied wrote that the department is finalizing its policy with union leaders and that next month all solid waste employees will receive training on that plan. Zaied also wrote that the department would follow the OIG’s recommendations to “explore” partnering with the health department to provide “cooling centers” for Code Red heat days.

Read the Inspector General’s Report here: