FAQ: How can landscapers recognize and prevent heat-related illnesses during the summer?

Answer: According to OSHA.gov, landscaping companies have legal and moral responsibilities to ensure that employees working in high heat conditions can take rest breaks in the shade, have cool water to drink, and allow new or returning employees to acclimatize to the heat.

Additionally, employees need training in heat illness prevention and to act promptly when someone shows heat stress signs.

Interestingly, people acclimate to warmer temperatures gradually throughout the summer. However, summertime temperatures can go from mild to hot in 24-48 hours, not giving your crews enough time to acclimate.

Yet, you still bear a responsibility that your laborers get enough breaks to cool down, drink water, and get out of the sun when there’s unrelenting heat.

In this blog post, you’ll learn the following about heat-related illnesses:

• Wearing the right gear for summertime heat
• Readjusting work schedules around peak heating times
• Updating your first aid procedures and when to call 911.

Wearing the Right Gear for Summertime Heat

Landscaping workers must have the proper clothing that helps them stay cool during the hot summer months. TotalLandscapeCare.com provides clothing and other heat-related ideas to keep your technicians safe in the field.

1. Headwear: Protect your workers’ scalps with UV-blocking hats that ward off the sun’s rays. Anyone with a thick head of hair can still get sunburn on their scalp and neck. Wide-brimmed hats will protect your workers from sunburn and will help keep them cooler.
2. Neckwear: If your employees prefer to wear a baseball hat, they must protect their necks from sunburn. Provide neck shades for those wearing baseball hats so your workers can wear them underneath their hats. If your employees work hardscaping jobs that need hard hats, they can still wear a neck shade underneath them.
3. High-performance blend shirts: When temperatures reach the 90s, you want your team to wear breathable clothing. You want moisture-wicking shirts with high-performance synthetic blends to keep your workers comfortable and sweat-free.
4. High-performance blend shorts: Protect your crews from heat and humidity with high-performance shorts designed to repel moisture and heat, along with excellent durability. Some brands even have cooling technology that reacts with your workers’ bodies for temperature control and active cooling.
5. Cooling towels: Keep your workers comfortable between jobs with cooling towels that use evaporative cooling to reduce body temperatures.   Place the cooling towel in water and then ring out the excess moisture. Your workers can put the towels on their heads, faces, neck, and shoulders. These towels also protect from harmful UV rays. Cooling towels work best in low to medium humidity since they draw heat away from the body, like sweating. However, in higher humidity, the towel removes excess body heat but stores the heat since the moisture will not evaporate quickly. Your workers need to recharge their cooling towels by dunking them in water, often during high-humidity days when the towels are too warm or quickly dry.

Readjusting Work Schedules Around Peak Heating Times

Many landscaping companies start earlier in the day to keep their workers from being out on the field during the hottest part of the day.

On hot days when workers can be out in the field all day, use these ideas to prevent any heat illnesses:

• Check in with your crews throughout the day to ensure everyone is doing well in the heat.
• Ensure that your supervisors know how to handle any heat-related emergencies, and they should know when to call 911.
• Coach your supervisors to check on crew members to look out for employees who look overheated or disoriented.
• While you want your employees to own their health while out on the field, you should encourage them to take breaks when needed.
• Ensure that trucks have working air conditioners so workers can cool off between jobs
• Stock 5-gallon coolers with ice water on trucks so crews can get a drink when needed. Also, they should be able to refill the coolers with ice-cold water when it runs low.

Updating Your First Aid Procedures and When to Call 911

Do your crew leaders know how to spot a heat-related illness in one of their team members?
First, your crew leaders should be able to spot when a worker is affected by a heat-related illness. Listed below are heat illness symptoms, and a person may exhibit several at once:

1. Confusion
2. Slurred speech
3. Unconsciousness
4. Seizures
5. Heavy sweating or hot, dry skin
6. Very high body temperature or fast heart rate
7. Fatigue
8. Irritability
9. Thirst
10. Nausea or vomiting
11. Dizziness or lightheadedness
12. Muscle spasms or pain
13. Heat cramps in the legs, arms, or trunk
14. Fainting
15. Clusters of red bumps on the skin, which appear in the neck, upper chest, and skin folds
16. Muscle pain
17. Dark urine or reduced urination
18. Weakness.

Coach your supervisors to call 911 if one of their team members is experiencing any of the above symptoms.

Your supers don’t need to diagnose the worker. Instead, move the person out of the heat and into the shade. Try cooling them off with water, cooling towels, and opening their clothes.

Summing Up

Heat illnesses are serious business. As a landscape business owner, you ensure everyone can take a break from the hot sun, cool off, and drink water during relentlessly hot days.

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Find your local K-Rain distributor online. Contact K-Rain’s customer service at 800-735-7246 or technical support at 800-735-7246 ex.129. Learn more about K-Rain’s Customer Care & Support at our website.

Sources:
LandscapeManagement.net, How Landscaping Companies Are Handling the Record-Breaking Heat.
LawnandLandscape.com, Beat the Heat.
OSHA.gov, Extreme Heat Can Be Deadly to Workers. (pdf)
Ibid, Overview: Working in Outdoor and Indoor Heat Environments.
Ibid, Heat: Prevention – Protecting New Workers.
Safeopedia.com, How Do Cooling Towels Work?
TotalLandscapeCare.com, How to Appropriately Outfit Your Landscaping Team for All Weather Conditions.
Ibid, Cooling Towels and Other Methods to Beat the Heat This Summer.