ST. PAUL, Ore. (AP) — On his 38th birthday, Sebastian Francisco Perez, an immigrant from Guatemala, played chess with his nephew. The next day, he went to work at a nursery in a rural Oregon town as the thermometer soared well above 100 degrees. Perez collapsed that day, last Saturday, as a heat wave baked the Pacific Northwest in record-high temperatures. An ambulance arrived and paramedics tried to revive him, but Perez didn’t make it. Hundreds of people are believed to have died from Friday to Tuesday in the historic heat wave that hit Oregon, Washington state and Canada’s British Columbia. The death of Perez underscores the dangers that farm workers face.
Northwest heat wave: Tragedy strikes immigrant family again
