Here’s Klein with an anecdote that captures Oregon’s drive to invest in preventing health problems, rather than just continuing to treat costly disease episodes:

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) loves to tell the air-conditioner story. He loves to tell it so much, in fact, that it has become something of a running joke in Oregon health-policy circles. At this point, even Kitzhaber is in on it. Before he repeats it to me, he says, “I probably shouldn’t bore you with my air conditioner story.”

Here’s the air conditioner story: There’s a 90-year-old woman with well-managed congestive heart failure who lives in an apartment without air conditioning. That’s actually the whole story.

Kitzhaber, a former emergency room physician, sees this as the perfect example of what’s wrong with our health-care system. “A hot day could send the temperature in her apartment high enough that it strains her cardiovascular system and kicks her into full-blown congestive heart failure,” he said. “Under the current system, Medicare will pay for the ambulance and $50,000 to stabilize her. It will not pay for a $200 window air conditioner, which is all she needs to stay in her home and out of the hospital. The difference to the health-care system is $49,800. And we could save that $49,800 without reducing her benefits or her quality of life.”

…“The fundamental problem with our health-care system is the growing discrepancy between the cost of care, the resources available to pay for it and the tenuous connection between that expenditure and actual health,” Kitzhaber said. “What we’re doing is instead of putting our budget into the ER and paying for congestive heart failure after congestive heart failure, we’re putting it into care coordination and community health workers. We’re investing in health. It’s just a paradigm shift.”

Oregon is getting $1.9 billion from the federal government to overhaul its Medicaid program, in exchange for a commitment by the state to keep its Medicaid cost growth below the rate in the rest of the country, saving a total of $11 billion over the next decade. (Sarah Kliff has more details on Oregon’s plan.) The state may find that giving free air conditioners — and, I’d hope, vouchers to help with related electric bills — to residents with congestive heart failure reduces medical costs.

Oregon’s 15 coordinated care organizations (CCOs) will likely come up with many such prevention projects, and see which ones are worthy of continued investment. In addition to interventions that deliver an immediate benefit, like air conditioners, the state and individual CCOs could invest in programs and infrastructure that increase physical activity and improve access to healthy food, which can reduce disease occurrence and severity years into the future. In fact, these are the kinds of interventions that the Prevention and Public Health Fund — one of the less-noticed pieces of the Affordable Care Act — was designed to support. Congress and the Obama Administration have repeatedly diverted money from this fund, however, so it can’t do all that Congress envisioned when it first included the Fund in the ACA.

Oregon is betting that investing in prevention will save money over the long run. It’s important to note, though, that prevention investments are worthwhile if they improve people’s quality of life, whether or not there are savings. But governments have limited amounts of money to spend, and they have to prioritize. Here’s Bill Gates giving Ezra Klein an example of a problematic spending tradeoff:

My deep interest in this came somewhat because it’s fascinating but also because our big cause in the U.S. is education, and if you look at state budgets, they are moving money from education to health. They have to because the health costs are just exploding. So very quickly say to yourself, gosh, if there’s going to be any money left for university education and adequate money for K-12, even to stay flat, you have to figure out health-care costs.

Unfortunately, in rich-world health, innovation is both your friend and your enemy. Innovation is inventing organ replacement, joint replacement. We’re inventing ways of doing new things that cost $300,000 and take people in their 70s and, on average, give them an extra, say, two or three years of life. And then you have to say, given finite resources, should we fire two or three teachers to do this operation? And with chemotherapies, we’ve got things where we’ll spend our dollars on treatments where you’re valuing a life here at over $10 to $20 million. Really big, big numbers, which if you were infinitely rich, of course that would be fine.

So most innovations, unfortunately, actually increase the net costs of the healthcare system. There’s a few, particularly having to do with chronic diseases, that are an exception. If you could cure Alzheimer’s, if you could avoid diabetes — those are gigantic in terms of saving money. But the incentive regime doesn’t favor them.

The reason we’re worried about the rate of healthcare-cost increase (which has generally outpaced GDP growth over the past decades) is that ever-growing healthcare spending will crowd out spending in other areas, like education. Given that better-educated populations tend to have better health, reducing education spending to pour ever-greater shares of federal and state budgets into Medicare and Medicaid could itself contribute to higher healthcare costs in the future. Governments will need to prioritize spending on the most worthwhile interventions. We should be paying close attention to Oregon’s experiment to see what they learn about getting the most bang for their healthcare bucks.

It’s not surprising that more DC commuters are biking, because over the past few years the city has made substantial investments in bicycling infrastructure. Our Capital Bikeshare system keeps expanding, and our District Department of Transportation has created 56 miles of marked bike lanes and installed 2,300 bike parking racks in recent years.

Investing in making bicycling safer and easier gets results: The League of American Bicyclists identified Bicycle Friendly Communities and found that the bike commuting rate has risen 80% in the largest of these communities, compared to 47% nationwide. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s County by County blog draws an even clearer line between cycling and pedestrian infrastructure improvements and public health, noting, “Research shows that cycling and pedestrian infrastructure improvements such as bicycle lanes, bicycle racks, bicycle/walking trails, and shared bicycle programs promote physical activity.

Riding a bike is a great way to get some exercise while saving money on transportation. Still, cycling isn’t as safe as it could be. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that in 2011, 677 cyclists were killed and another 48,000 injured in traffic crashes. Drivers and cyclists both need to be aware of one another and follow the rules, and infrastructure that physically separates bike lanes from traffic lanes can also be helpful. Enforcement is also essential, as many cyclists frustrated by U-turning drivers on DC’s Pennsylvania Avenue bike lanes can attest.

The Department of Transportation’s Share the Road Safely website has tips for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. Keep your fellow road users in mind as you make your way home tonight!

The Bangladesh garment industry, a national golden goose, is politically well-connected. Clothing accounts for a whopping 80% of the country’s $24 billion in annual exports and employs 4 million people, with dozens of lawmakers closely linked to factory owners.

And though many Western apparel companies adopt codes of conduct, they’re keen to drive production costs down and maximize profit atop an industry of constantly changing subcontractors. Feeding all this are Western consumers looking for cheap deals.

The average wage for garment workers in Bangladesh is 10 to 30 cents an hour, labor activists say, and many of the factories lack fire escapes, windows or emergency exits.

Garment factory fires have been a recurrent problem in Bangladesh, killing about 700 people since 2006, according to the Clean Clothes Campaign. Last year, at least 110 people were killed in a fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory, with another eight killed in January.

Magnier reports that Bangladesh has announced temporary closures of 18 factories deemed to be dangerous and plans to hire 200 more building inspectors within six months.

For the Associated Press, Jonathan Fahey and Anne D’Innocenzio explain that it will be difficult for major brands to pull out of Bangladesh, because the country has enough workers and manufacturing capacity to reliably produce clothing at high volume and low prices. They also note that retailers rarely know where all of the pieces of a particular garment are produced, because contractors will subcontract out to many small factories.

Several major clothing retailers, including H&M, have just signed on to a legally binding plan under which retailers will help finance fire safety and building improvements in the Bangladesh factories that make their products. The New York Times’ Steven Greenhouse reports:

Consumer and labor groups hailed the move by Sweden-based H&M – which is the largest purchaser of garments from Bangladesh – as an important step toward improving factory safety in Bangladesh, saying it would increase pressure on other Western retailers and apparel brands to do likewise.

Within hours of H&M’s Monday statement, C&A of the Netherlands and two British retailers, Primark and Tesco, also joined in.

The factory safety agreement calls for independent, rigorous factory safety inspections with public reports and mandatory repairs and renovations underwritten by Western retailers. A legally enforceable contract, it also calls for retailers to stop doing business with any factory that refuses to make necessary safety improvements, and for workers and their unions to have a substantial voice in factory safety.

In other news:

MSNBC: Over 100 workers from roughly 30 different St. Louis fast-food restaurants walked off the job, as part of a campaign to raise the state’s minimum wage and win the chance to unionize without intimidation. (For more background, see Josh Eidelson’s Salon piece on St. Louis fast-food workers.)

Washington Post: Retired NFL players often require extensive, costly medical care years after their football careers end and the league stops providing their health insurance. The NFL disability board denies nearly 60% of disability claims.

Huffington Post: In an op-ed, US Representative Gwen Moore and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker warn that House Republicans’ “Working Families Flexibility Act” gives employers flexibility not to pay overtime. “In reality, this bill would provide more work and less pay,” they write.

Los Angeles Times: Cal/OSHA has fined Bumble Bee Foods almost $74,000 for violations related to the death of Jose Melena, 62, who was burned to death inside an industrial pressure cooker.

NIOSH Science Blog: For Women’s Health Week, researchers take a look at women in the workplace and summarize findings: “Women generally have more work-related cases of carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, respiratory diseases, infectious diseases, and anxiety and stress disorders,” and health hazards related to reproductive health and pregnancy are also a concern.

The Taliban alleged that the campaign was a cover for espionage.

Efforts to tackle the highly infectious disease have been hampered over the years by local suspicion about vaccines being a plot to sterilise Muslims, particularly in Pakistan’s conservative and poorly educated northwest.

“We are worried because this new case comes as an example of a bigger impending outbreak of disease in the region,” the WHO official said.

As we’ve noted before, it’s not entirely unreasonable for Pakistanis to think a vaccination campaign might be cover for espionage, because the CIA ran a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad, Pakistan in an attempt to get DNA samples showing that members of Osama bin Laden’s family were living there. After nine polio vaccinators were killed in Pakistan in December, deans of schools of public health wrote to President Obama denouncing the CIA’s ruse and stating:

International public health work builds peace and is one of the most constructive means by which our past, present, and future public health students can pursue a life of fulfillment and service. Please do not allow that outlet of common good to be closed to them because of political and/or security interests that ignore the type of unintended negative public health impacts we are witnessing in Pakistan.

Pakistan is one of only three countries where the polio virus still circulates (Afghanistan and Nigeria are the others). Global eradication of the disease would be a public health triumph, and could save as much as $2 billion a year. Last month, an international group of scientists released a statement declaring their “conviction that the eradication of polio is an urgent and achievable global health priority” and calling on the global community to implement the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan. At the Global Vaccine Summit held in Abu Dhabi two weeks ago, global leaders pledged financial and political support to the plan and its goal of a lasting polio-free world by 2018.

The new polio case in Pakistan underscores the urgency of the situation, and offers a reminder that new approaches may be necessary now that the CIA’s actions have weakened trust in existing vaccination efforts. In the latest issue of the Lancet, Qanta A Ahmed, Sania Nishtar, and Ziad A Memish urge that the Muslim world assume a more active role in the effort to eliminate polio in Pakistan, with Saudi Arabia taking leadership. They write::

Saudi Arabia and its health authorities are uniquely placed to bring about change in Pakistan for two reasons. First, as the site of Mecca and Medina and host to the Hajj, Saudi Arabia wields enormous influence in Muslim Pakistan. Second, Saudi Arabia has experience of introducing new public health recommendations and strengthening public health outreach by legitimising new public health measures with both formal Islamic authority, in the form of fatwas, and informally, through public opinion.

Saudi theocrats and public health officials are experienced in effective public health messaging in the diverse Muslim public space. … Pakistan’s Taliban views vaccination programmes as not being Islamic and a western innovation to be repudiated, at the peril of the murder of health workers and the inexorable rise of poliomyelitis. Saudi Arabia’s clerics have shown the opposite view through their willing and engaged acceptance of diverse forms of advanced medicine — e.g., the use of alcohol-based hand hygiene agents, and use of porcine medicinal products if no alternative is available.

The authors point out that it’s in Saudi Arabia’s interest to help eradicate polio in Pakistan, because nearly 200,000 Pakistanis travel to Saudi Arabia annually for the Hajj pilgrimage. (Their piece notes that Saudi Arabia has public-health measures in place to prevent pilgrims bringing polio into the country, including requiring vaccination for visa issuance to pilgrims coming from countries where poliovirus is actively circulating.)

Whatever roles individual countries play, it’s crucial that the global community act quickly and decisively to eradicate polio before it can gain a foothold again. And the US intelligence community needs to refrain from imperiling major public health achievements that save millions of lives worldwide, because health is a key component of security.

Celebrated the first week of May since 1985, Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW) is time set aside to honor the men and women who serve our nation as federal, state, county and local government employees and ensure that our government is the best in the world.

… Our theme for PSRW 2013 is “Why I Serve.” Throughout the week, we will invite agency leaders and elected officials to share stories about why they answered the call to serve in government and what accomplishments they are most proud of in their time as public servants.

Public servants deserve our thanks throughout the year and we invite you to continue honoring them for the work they do each and every day. Ideas range from sending messages of thanks to holding appreciation events to highlighting employee accomplishments on your website or newsletter. For additional suggestions, please download our How to Celebrate PSRW Guide.

Since last fall, a collaboration between the WashingtonPost.com and the Partnership for Public Service has showcased the important work of a range of federal employees. Here are a few of the highlighted employees whose work improves public health (descriptions are from the Post’s website):

• An expert in preventing insect-borne diseases: As director of the USDA-Agricultural Research Service Center for Medical, Agricultural & Veterinary Entomology in Florida, Kenneth Linthicum developed techniques that have protected U.S. military personnel overseas from debilitating afflictions caused by sand flies.
• Assisting victims of hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters: When a disaster strikes, Mark Misczak [of FEMA] is a beacon of light for survivors, helping them receive much-needed government support and assistance.
• Tracking flu outbreaks nationwide: You may be seeing less sniffling and sneezing in your neighborhood these days, but flu season is never really over for Lynnette Brammer [of CDC].
• Fighting the growing type 2 diabetes epidemic in children: Between 2006 and 2011, Dr. Barbara Linder led two multi-year clinical trials sponsored by the National Institutes of Health which developed and tested strategies to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes in youth.
• Helping VA rehabilitate those with multiple wounds of war: Micaela Cornis-Pop oversees more than 110 rehabilitation facilities around the country, helping the VA stay at the forefront of developments in treating traumatic brain injury and other medical issues facing injured veterans.
• Training healthcare providers to reduce medical errors: Heidi King [of the DOD] and her colleagues have developed a health-care provider training system known as TeamSTEPPS that has become the gold standard for eliminating preventable medical harm.
• Working to reduce food waste and protect the environment: At just 26 years-old, Laura Moreno [of EPA] is a tireless crusader for reducing and recycling food waste.
• Tracking storm surges and flooding from hurricanes: Thanks to a new application developed by Benton McGee of the U.S. Geological Survey, officials can now make more precise measurements during major storms.
• Making vaccines available to poor and uninsured children: Dr. Lance Rodewald directed the CDC’s Immunization Services Division for 12 years, recently taking an assignment with the WHO to work on childhood immunization issues in China.

These are all federal employees, but people working in state and municipal governments are doing similar: collecting data, crunching numbers, spotting trends in diseases and disasters, finding ways to use resources more efficiently and effectively. If they do they work well, we often don’t notice; how many of us think about the vaccine-preventable diseases we haven’t caught, or the foodborne illnesses that haven’t sickened our families?

“Big government” is a common political putdown these days, but it’s important to remember today’s federal workforce is neither overpaid nor abnormally large by this country’s historical standards — and the key thing is not whether it’s big or small in absolute terms, but whether it’s the right size for the job. There are many public services that are best performed by the federal government, including the collection and analysis of extensive meteorological and disease data and the establishment and enforcement of rules for food and water quality and drug safety.

In addition to years of salary freezes, employees at many federal agencies are now facing furlough days – an experience that’s familiar to many state and municipal employees who’ve also seen smaller paychecks as their jurisdictions have faced budget crunches. Between these difficulties and the all-too-common demonization of government workers, it’s hardly surprising that morale has fallen at several agencies. It may be an uphill battle to get our elected officials to fund agencies appropriately, but demonstrating that we value government workers’ contributions doesn’t need to cost a lot of money.

Public Service Recognition Week is a chance for learn more about the less-visible ways government employees help us all live healthier lives, and to show public servants that we value their work.  Visit http://publicservicerecognitionweek.org/ for more.

• California: ABC News/ Univision and La Opinion
• Illinois: The Telegraph
• Nebraska: Lincoln Journal Star
• New York: The Daily Gazette (subscription required)
• North Carolina: News & Observer
• Massachusetts: The Dedham Transcript, EHS Today, Worcester Mag, MetroWest Daily News (all articles are posted on the MassCOSH site)
• Tennessee: WBIR
• Texas: Houston Chronicle
• Wyoming: Casper Star-Tribune, the Billings Gazette, and WyoFile.

Congratulations to everyone who helped draw attention to the problems of workplace deaths — and the solutions that can make workplaces safer for everyone. Check out Dorry’s post for photos, videos, and accounts from event participants.

In other news:

Reuters: The death toll from a factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh has risen to 411, and the European Union is considering trade action against the country, which currently enjoys preferential access to EU markets for its garments.

In These Times: An interview with Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, offers insight into the challenges and strategies for organizing nannies, caregivers, and housekeepers for better working conditions.

Boston Globe: Enforcement citations against employers violating child-labor laws have dropped dramatically in recent years, and the fall may be due (at least in part) to reduced enforcement activity.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration: For Workers’ Memorial Day, OSHA announced a new initiative to protect temporary workers.

Kaiser Health News: In seven states and Washington, DC, legislatures are considering “safe staffing” bills that would set minimum nurse-patient ratios at hospitals.

(A quick refresher: In December 2011, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg’s decision that Plan B should be available over the counter without age restrictions; instead, Secretary Sebelius lowered the age at which a woman can obtain Plan B from a pharmacist without a prescription from 18 to 17. Last month, a federal judge overturned the age restriction.)

Anything that improves women’s access to effective forms of contraception is a step in the right direction. And yesterday’s FDA announcement isn’t an improvement just because it extends emergency contraceptive access to 15- and 16-year-olds (although that’s certainly worthwhile); it also reduces the barriers women of any age face when trying to obtain Plan B quickly. Given that the drug’s effectiveness depends on being taken promptly after unprotected intercourse, speed matters. Up until now, Plan B has only been available from a pharmacist, who must then verify the purchaser’s age with an ID. Pharmacy hours tend to be limited, and when my colleague Susan Wood tried to purchase Plan B following the 2011 decision, she had to visit three stores to find an open pharmacy counter, then stand in two different lines in order to show her ID and make the purchase. Now, FDA announces that the product will be available in retailers’ family planning sections and during hours when these stores’ pharmacies are closed, and cashiers can check IDs:

The product will now be labeled “not for sale to those under 15 years of age *proof of age required* not for sale where age cannot be verified.” Plan B One-Step will be packaged with a product code prompting a cashier to request and verify the customer’s age. A customer who cannot provide age verification will not be able to purchase the product. In addition, Teva has arranged to have a security tag placed on all product cartons to prevent theft.

In addition, Teva will make the product available in retail outlets with an onsite pharmacy, where it generally, will be available in the family planning or female health aisles. The product will be available for sale during the retailer’s normal operating hours whether the pharmacy is open or not.

For women ages 15 and up who have government-issued IDs, access to emergency contraception is getting easier. Now, we just need to wait and see how HHS responds to last month’s court decision: will it appeal, or will it eliminate all age restrictions on emergency contraception?

Update, 5/2: At about the same time I was writing this post, HHS was announcing it will appeal the federal court decision.

Mike Elk in the Washington Post: The Texas fertilizer plant explosion cannot be forgotten

Laurie Garrett in Foreign Policy: The Big One? Is China covering up another flu pandemic — or getting it right this time? (About the H7N9 flu, which has been confirmed in 108 patients in China)

Kari Lyderson at Reporting on Health: ‘That Feeling Doesn’t Go Away’: Mental Health and Undocumented Children

David Schultz in Kaiser Health News: Nurses Fighting State by State for Minimum Staffing Laws

Emily Badger at Atlantic Cities: New Chicago Plan: Pedestrians Come First

One day in April 2009, Orestes Martinez (29) and two co-workers were working at a construction site for the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, helping to install a two-ton, lead-lined door in the radiation department of the hospital. They were moving the door by hand since no lift device was available. During the installation, the door fell on Martinez, crushing him to death.

The report includes thoughts from Adriana Martinez, Orestes Martinez’s wife. She also told her story for the six-minute video “Our loved ones died at unsafe workplaces,” which features the stories of four families who lost a loved one to a fatal work-related injury.

National COSH’s report includes several important recommendations for federal OSHA, the US Congress, and states to strengthen worker protections. In addition to those recommendations, there are steps that people in charge of building design and construction can take to protect workers at every stage of a building’s life cycle.

At last week’s Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference, Christine Branche and Matt Gillen of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Office of Construction Safety and Health delivered a fascinating presentation on using a “Life Cycle Safety” approach to ensure that green buildings are safe buildings. We’ve seen a lot of interest in green buildings in recent years, as companies seek to reduce their energy use and earn environmental seals of approval like the US Green Building Council’s LEED certification. So far, however, such green certifications haven’t lived up to their potential to protect the workers who build, maintain, and eventually demolish or refurbish the buildings.

Matt Gillen’s photo of a worker fixing an HVAC system (below) captures several ways that a poorly designed building can be hazardous for workers. This worker didn’t have easy access to the machine – he had to climb a ladder to get to it, and then didn’t have enough space between the equipment and the edge of the building. Without an easily accessible power supply, he had to run an extension cord up to the roof, which presents a potential electrical hazard as well as something additional to trip over. The thing that makes me cringe the most, though, is that he’s sitting on a low parapet and looks like he could very easily fall over the edge.

NIOSH takes the perspective that “a sustainable product, process or technology should not only protect the environment and the consumer but also the worker. Green jobs must be safe jobs.” To ensure that green buildings offer safe jobs, it’s important to consider worker health and safety at the design stage. Architects and engineers should collaborate with occupational health professionals to consider how a building will be constructed, maintained, and repaired or demolished. They should consider all the hazards workers might face at each stage and modify their designs to eliminate or reduce those hazards.

Features common in green buildings can present occupational hazards if those involved in design and construction planning don’t consider workers sufficiently. Installing and maintaining solar panels, for instance, can be hazardous; workers can fall off roofs or through skylights and can be electrocuted. At the design stage, architects can reduce these hazards by ensuring workers installing, repairing, and cleaning solar panels have enough room to maneuver around the solar panels; specifying guardrails or parapets high enough to prevent workers from toppling off the roof; and including anchor, or tie-off, points for workers using safety harnesses. Ensuring easy access to the roof – e.g., by a stairway rather than a ladder – is important, too, especially because solar panels need regular cleaning to operate efficiently.

Ideally, these “upstream” modifications will reduce risks, and additional “downstream” practices can address the remaining risk. The California Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) program responded to a rash of deaths among construction workers installing solar panels by producing a video and fact sheets about risks and preventive measures. These include using fall protection systems and ensuring that lifts are available to hoist solar panels to the roof, so that workers aren’t trying to manually carry panels up ladders. Construction planning is important for ensuring that lift equipment is available, and it can also allow for some assembly to be done on the ground rather than on the roof. At the NIOSH presentation, I also learned that workers can use solar blankets to keep light from getting to solar panels while they’re being worked on – in essence, shutting off the electricity by blocking sunlight.

OSHA’s Fall Prevention Campaign, developed in partnership with NIOSH, lays out a three-step “Plan, Provide, Train” process for preventing falls throughout the construction industry. Their resources include educational resources for employers and workers, many of them geared to workers with limited English proficiency.

NIOSH has made progress in working with the US Green Building Council and others to integrate worker health and safety into green building design; check out their Prevention Through Design site for more. With better planning, fewer families will join Orestes Martinez’s family in grieving for a loved one killed on the job.

This week begins in the shadow of a tragedy in Texas, where a massive fire and explosion at a fertilizer plant in the town of West killed at least 14 people. Among the casualties listed on the Waco Tribune’s website are several firefighters:

• Morris Bridges, 41. Fire sprinkler technician for Action Fire Pros. Member of West Volunteer Fire Department.
• Perry Calvin, 37. Student at Hill College Fire Academy. Member of Mertens and Navarro Mills volunteer fire departments.
• Jerry Chapman, 26. Worked as a server. Member of Abbott Volunteer Fire Department.
• Cody Dragoo, 50. Foreman at West Fertilizer Co. Member of West Volunteer Fire Department.
• Kenny Harris, 52. Dallas city fire captain.
• Joey Pustejovsky. West City Secretary. Member of West Volunteer Fire Department.
• Cyrus Reed. Worked at Waxahachie plant. Member of Abbott Volunteer Fire Department.
• Robert Snokhous, 48. Central Texas Iron Works employee, West volunteer firefighter.
• Doug Snokhous, 50. Central Texas Iron Works employee, West volunteer firefighter.

Manny Fernandez writes in the New York Times about the memorial service for ten firefighters and two men who are being recognized as firefighters for their work battling the blaze:

The department lost five of its 28 members, officials said. Several members were injured and taken to hospitals, including the chief, George Nors Sr., 67, who was released on Friday. The acting chief is his son, George Nors Jr., 34.

… The department had five engines and trucks; now, it has two. On Friday night, trucks and firefighters from Waxahachie and other towns were in the fire station, covering the day-to-day duties so that members of the West department could recuperate and grieve among themselves and their loved ones.

“They lost one-fifth of their organization,” Mr. Ondrasek said. “Many of the officers within the organization either died or are in the hospital. It all brings home how dangerous the job is that you don’t get paid to do. You’re serving your community because this is what you want to do and feel like you need to do. And you can pay with your life.”

First responders deserve our praise and gratitude for serving their communities in jobs that can endanger their lives. All too often, though, their deaths are preventable — as are thousands of other on-the-job deaths.

During Workers’ Memorial Week, people who’ve lost loved ones to workplace deaths are in our thoughts and, in many cases, in the media spotlight. Many brave members of group United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities have told their stories to reporters, lawmakers, and regulators in efforts to advocate for improved worker health and safety protections. This year, Danielle Dole told the (Tennessee) Cadillac News about her father, Sherman Holmes, who was killed in a logging incident while working at K&K Forest Products. Reporter Rick Charmoli wrote:

Danielle Dole struggles every day with the loss of her father.

On April Fool’s Day, Dole typically would get a call from her dad, Sherman Holmes, and he would tell her jokes.

Last Monday, there was no such call.

Every Christmas, the Tustin native would spend the holiday with both her parents even though they were divorced and had been for a number of years. The past two holiday seasons, a spot at the table was left unfilled.

This is part of the grief Dole deals with every day. While death is inevitable, Dole’s father didn’t die after a long sickness or from natural causes. He died from a work-related accident. He was 55.

Dole didn’t get to say goodbye. She didn’t get the chance to introduce her father to his yet-to-be-born granddaughter. Her son Jackson, who was 2 when Holmes died on Feb. 1, 2011, will only have fleeting memories of his Papa Sherman.

… A few months after her father died, Dole and her sister received a flyer from the United Support and Memorial for Workplace Fatalities. The non-profit organization is a support group made up of families who have been in the same situation and understand the emotions and questions people like Dole may have regarding the loss of their family member.

The group has helped make things easier, but the struggles still remain for Dole. It has made her stronger, however, knowing that she is not alone and others are dealing with the same emotions.

“It is like my extra family,” she said.

In addition to the the support, Dole said the group also advocates for the families who have lost loved ones by lobbying in states and in Washington, D.C., for the transformation of the work environment to safe and healthy conditions for all workers.

Danielle Dole has organized the June 1 Sherman L. Holmes 5K Run-Walk as part of her efforts to raise awareness of workplace safety while honoring her father’s memory. She has also traveled to Washington, DC and joined other USMWF members in meeting with regulators and demonstrating in the front of the US Chamber of Commerce to advocate for stronger workplace health and safety protections (read more about their DC visit on page 17 of our report The Year in US Occupational Health & Safety).

Workers’ Memorial Week of Action events are taking place in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) has compiled listings for these events as well as more info about Workers’ Memorial Day, and their website features several Stories of Fallen Workers. National COSH will also be holding a Facebook Town Hall on Wednesday, April 24 (submit your questions now; a live Q&A will start at 1pm ET) and leading a Twitterstorm on Thursday April 25 (concentrated at 1pm, but going on throughout the day).