Keeping Utility Workers Safe in Extreme Heat

Scott Head | Dragonwear

Dr. Kevin Rindal | Vimocity

Kate Wade | Incident Prevention

Hi everyone and welcome to Incident Prevention's utility safety podcast. I'm Kate Wade, the editor of Incident Prevention Magazine and your host for this episode. As many of our listeners may know, July is extreme heat awareness month. So, I'm excited to introduce our two guests today who are going to share their expertise about how heat affects the human body, ways to prevent heat related illnesses in the field, and which flame resistant clothing features can keep workers as comfortable as possible in the heat.

So, first I'd like to welcome back Dr. Kevin Rindle, who is the co-founder and CEO of Vimocity, a soft tissue injury prevention company. And I'm also super happy to introduce our listeners to Scott Head, Western Region account executive for Dragonware, who's spent nearly 20 years working with utility organizations to ensure their crews have access to high quality FR gear. So, welcome to the podcast, guys, and thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, thanks so much, Kate. Really happy to be back again.

Yeah, thank you guys. I'm really excited about this topic. But before we kind of really dive in, I'd like you both to introduce yourselves a little bit more. Um, Kevin, if you want to go first, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about your background in human performance and how that led you to co-founding Vimocity?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so I have a background in sports medicine. I'm actually a sports chiropractor. Spent 15 years in a private practice. But then I also spent 12 years working with the US women's ice hockey team as part of their sports medicine staff and then spent 10 years with USA swimming as part of their sports medicine staff. So was part of the 2012 2016 Olympic teams and then did a lot of work with the Brooks Beast professional running team as well.

So when it comes to performance, not only soft tissue performance but also what we call thermoregulation is absolutely critical and that's your ability to hydrate, fuel, and cool yourself down so that you can continue to perform at a high level. I also am a four-time iron man finisher myself and so I like to use my body as testing grounds for testing some of these theories that I work on and what I will tell you is in those long races, thermoregulation is absolutely critical. So this is something that's near and dear to my heart.

Awesome. Thank you for that. Scott, can you tell us a little bit more about what drew you to your work in the FR space and what you do now at DragonWear?

Absolutely. Early on in my career, I worked for a company by the name of Riverside Manufacturing, and they were a uniform company that made uniforms for all the major brands that we know in the country like Coca-Cola and Fredo and then they decided to manufacture FR clothing. Back in the early 2000s, FR clothing was fairly new to electric utilities.

From there I went on to work for an FR distributor by the name of Wayne Enterprises. And that gave me the opportunity to work with all the major manufacturers that are out there and really opened my eyes to all of the different options that were out there and different things that different brands were doing.

About 4 years ago, Dragonware asked me to come on board and it was an opportunity I definitely just had to jump on because I've always thought so highly of the brand and the clothes. The thing that really draws me to it is that when you are a salesman such as I am, you get to sell something that actually makes a difference and actually saves people's lives. That really gives you a sense of purpose and DragonWear being so innovative gives me a lot of pride in the products that they manufacture as well as provide. I feel like they make a difference within the industry.

I love that.

So we know that heat stress is becoming a more common challenge, I would say, in general, but also particularly in the utility sector.

Kevin, from a human performance perspective, can you tell us what happens to our bodies when we're working in the heat and what is making utility crews out in the field especially vulnerable to heat stress?

For sure. And Kate, I failed as part of my introduction to say how I even have a connection with the utility workers, but in 2016, I started working with a utility company. They hired me to work with them on injury prevention, primarily in soft tissue injury prevention, and so I started a company called Vimocity. Now we work with utility workers all across the country.

I think the tie here to the question you just asked relates to thinking of frontline workers as industrial athletes. Most athletes maybe train or compete two to four hours a day, but most utility workers are out there in exposure like 8 to sometimes 16 hours a day, especially when we're talking about storms. It all goes back to taking sports medicine principles and applying those to the workforce.

When it comes to thermoregulation, we know that the temperatures are getting hotter. One of our customers down in Arizona had 113 days straight of over 100°. Now that's pretty severe conditions to be working in. Just like our cars, we think about coolant and air filters to maintain thermoregulation of our vehicles. But when you're out there working, you can't be in shade most of the time, especially when working out of a bucket on lines. So you have to approach that from a real strategy, which comes down to multiple things: making sure you're acclimatized and ready to perform in heat.

I live in the Pacific Northwest and we get only a handful of days that are warm every year. If you're not constantly training or testing your body to adapt, those changes can be severe. An 80° day here can send somebody into a heat crisis, versus somebody in Arizona who's working in 110° every day.

It's all about training your body to manage heat efficiently. That includes hydration, electrolyte balance, taking breaks, and preparing your body at the start of the day because all your blood stays in your core.

You want to prime your body to get blood out to the extremities and into the skin so it can start the cooling process. If you start totally cold, your body is less efficient. That's why a dynamic warm-up can be really effective at the start of a shift. There are many strategies, and I can't wait for Scott to share about fabric because I'm passionate about it.

If you've ever had an air filter that doesn't work well, imagine having a wet, heavy cloth on your skin—it actually prevents your body from dissipating heat and slows the cooling process. In athletics, athletes are more covered in fabric than ever because the fabrics wick moisture away from the body, accelerating cooling. This technology allows the human body to thermoregulate better.

I don't know if I totally answered your question, there's a lot there, but we are industrial athletes, and it's cool to bring these concepts to the workforce.

No, I mean all this stuff you're saying is relatable, not only to utility line workers, but to other people too. I was thinking about myself—my husband and I kayak every weekend. I had started a new medication last fall, and a few weeks ago it was in the '90s here. My doctor never said I might have a reaction in the heat. I was getting nausea and chills. It's 90°, I shouldn't be getting chills. I realized I had heat exhaustion or heat stress. I had to figure out how to keep myself regulated on the boat. I use wicking stuff and wear a wet towel around my neck all the time.

We're all trying to figure out how to manage as it gets hotter. The dynamic warm-up you mentioned is really important.

I guess my original question was: what happens to our bodies when we're working in the heat and haven't taken steps to acclimatize or regulate temperature? What kinds of things would you see if a coworker was experiencing heat stress, like a cold or something?


Totally. 

So the brain is about 78% water and then our blood is about 90% water and then our organs are primarily water. And so there's this like competition going on in the body constantly for who's going to get the water and who's going to get the blood flow, who's going to get the oxygen. And the brain requires a ton of blood flow and a ton of oxygen. But when we're trying to dissipate heat, our blood is going out to our extremities. And so it's actually pulling some of that blood and oxygen that should be going up to our brain. So some of the first things that you're going to see, I mean, even before somebody starts to go into like heat exhaustion or heat stroke or anything like that, they'll start to show confusion, irritability. 


You'll start to just notice small changes in how somebody's reacting. The other thing too is you'll start to see a lack of coordination. So people start dropping tools or their fingers become less specific. So you'll see people like dropping bolts. Just those simple things that normally someone want to do and those are the early signs. And so yeah, if you're working with a pole partner and you start to see some of that stuff, it's like okay, these are early warning signs that something might be going on. And then you'll, you know, go through phases where sometimes you see people sweating very profusely or sometimes they just stop sweating.

And that's one of the the biggest signs of like, hey, there's something big going on here and we better start paying attention because when somebody stops sweating and, you know, shuts down, then they become very red, their skin, you know, starts to change and and you can definitely see that that something is about ready to happen. So, yeah, all early warning signs  of some type of heat exhaustion or potentially heat stroke. 

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that one is really important because there's another gentleman I work with and he is like a nurse practitioner and he said, "Yeah, a lot of times people think you have to be like dowsted in sweat and a lot of times it won't look like that." So people don't think anything's wrong and that's when real problems can arise. So thank you for that explanation. 

Totally. 

And the only other thing I would say too is your medication piece. That's something that people definitely should be having conversations with their doctors about that because um you know there are all these medications that are going to impact like you know how your body holds on to salt or sugar or manages water and and so those are definitely things that can sometimes fall under the radar and and you know people don't realize that and they're on a new medication for only a couple days and then they are in a heat environment high heat environment and that can really cause issues. So yeah, definitely talk to your doctor about that.

Yeah. And and and remember that it like the pill bottle will not necessarily say it. Like maybe the big instruction packet, but if you're like me and you just kind of ditch that and you're like looking at the bottle like, "Oh, I just can't use heavy machinery." Like that's fine. Yeah. 
Well, so Scott, I want to ask you, I have like a two-part question, sir. First, in your experiencing, you know, or in your experience outfitting crews across the country, what are some of the biggest challenges that you're hearing about from safety leaders when it comes to keeping their field crews cool, protected, productive in hot environments?

And then I'm also curious, you know, how leaders like safety managers and other leaders in these utility companies, like what should they be evaluating in terms of mitigating heat stress, UV exposure? What should they be assessing when they're looking for new FR or AR clothing for their people?

Well, one of the biggest challenges is, as we know, everybody's different and what you might experience compared to me and Kevin, it all might be different. And that's the same within the industry, and the safety professionals just trying to find garments that work for everybody, because there's not a one-silver-bullet that works for everybody.

We have men, we have women, and one of the things is also just the training of the utility workers, as Kevin was saying, to know what to look for. To piggyback on what Kevin said, I was talking to a safety professional a week or two ago and he was telling me about an incident in which one of the people on his team quit sweating, but because he was trained, he knew that that was a warning sign. And so training their employees as to what to look for.

You mentioned something in your experience about putting a wet cloth on the back of your neck. One of the things that's important to know is that the back of the neck, well, the neck in general, keeping your neck cool is extremely important. So, trying to find some clothing that protects not just your torso, but also your neck as well is extremely challenging.

So finding something that is going to keep the sun off of the neck and not just keep the sun off, but also provide some UV protection. And so, that's one of the things that we at Dragon Wear definitely try to do and feel like we have accomplished as far as some of the products that we offer that address those specific things.

Nice. Like what kind of options? I mean particularly, we're talking about the neck. What kind of products do you provide that can address that?

Great question. We provide a shirt that's called Pro Drytech. Pro Drytech is a lightweight t-shirt that has a hood. In addition to the fact that it offers an 8C cal arc rating to keep the employees protected from an arc flash, it also offers UV protection.

This shirt was made for the summertime. It was basically invented because we had a utility worker come to us and tell us that throughout his time of being in the bucket, he had acquired some skin cancer on the back of his neck. If we were to make a lightweight t-shirt that had a hood on it, he thought there was a need for it. He was 100% right.

So we did that and we made the Pro Drytech to address that specific need. It's lightweight, so it keeps them cool, but it also has the hood to protect their neck from the sun. Plus, we offer the UV protection.

In addition to all that, it's a five-fiber shirt, meaning that there are five fibers in there that all do different things to help keep the body cool and at the same time protect them from an arc flash and keep the sun off the back of their neck. We feel like it is a shirt that has addressed all of those needs and was made for this specific purpose.

That's very cool. I know sometimes there are concerns about pricing and things like that, but I think it's important to point out that investing in this kind of gear saves money over time. And correct me if I'm wrong, but when you talk about injuries, PE time off of work, melanoma, things like that, those all are going to cost a lot more to handle rather than just investing the money now that might be maybe a little bit pricier than something that's not as well-built, but it's going to do the job, right?

Absolutely. We've all heard that famous quote, "you get what you pay for." One thing that we do at Dragon Wear is make performance products because, as Kevin said, these are industrial athletes. Industrial athletes need performance products in order for them to perform at their very top.

When they are out there doing their job, their job is dangerous enough in the best of conditions. It's extremely important that when they're out there, they're focused on the job at hand and not thinking about how hot they are, how wet they are, because the shirt that they're wearing has soaked up a bunch of perspiration. It's extremely important for them to wear products that let them focus on what they're doing and not the elements, the heat, and how uncomfortable they are.

If I could jump in too, this is something I'm super passionate about as well. When you think about the clothing that athletes wear, they've got to be able to stretch, move, and be comfortable. I always tell people, if you have a rock in your shoe, it's all you can think about when you're walking. You just want to get that rock out.

I've done races that have taken me 12 hours, and if you've got a seam that is rubbing against you, every step, every running motion, it's all you can think about. If you're on a line and working in a high-voltage, high-risk situation, already working in the sun, blood may not be going to your brain at the same capacity, so you may be more cloudy-headed.

If you have something restricting your motion, causing you to put your body in a different position, putting more stress on your body, or if your mind is distracted by how uncomfortable you are, all those things increase your risk of making an error or not having your head in the game, maybe missing something that might be a high-energy hazard that you would otherwise see and put the right direct controls in place.

I personally think that beyond just thermoregulation, the clothing that people wear also plays into their overall safety and prevention of more serious injuries. When you talk about the return on investment, people have to see themselves as athletes wearing the clothing that athletes would wear when they're competing. This is something I'm super passionate about and one reason why we like the people at Dragon Wear—they're focused on providing that type of equipment.

Well, yeah. All of that is super important. One of the things we talk a lot about in safety is, don't get distracted. Don't be distracted. We have to avoid these distractions. Are we considering the clothing? I don't know if they have sweat-wicking gloves, but if I'm a person whose hands are wet all the time, it drives me insane.

That's the kind of thing where you'd probably be wearing gloves, but if you had pools of sweat in there, it's gross and you can't focus fully on something else. I totally get what you're talking about. You mentioned hydration earlier.

I also think, talking about training people to recognize when their coworker is exhibiting signs of heat stress, that's another reason for crews to work on their interactions and bonds with each other. The better you know the people you're working with, the more likely you are to notice when something is going wrong with them.

Kevin, my next question was for you. One of the things I've heard you talk about before is the importance of workers’ preparation and recovery, especially in extreme environments. Can you offer some simple and time-efficient strategies that crews can build into their day that are going to help reduce heat's physical toll on their bodies?

Yeah, absolutely. I would say that a lot of it starts the day before there.



We always say that the hydration you have today is the hydration you'll have tomorrow. When you think about looking at the 10-day forecast, it's like, okay, when I come home today, I need to be drinking extra fluids. I need to make sure that those fluids are probably not dehydrating me or putting me into a situation where I wake up with a deficit in the morning.

I'm big on the first thing you should do every day: probably drink about 10 to 20 ounces of water so you can kick off the morning with hydration. We lose about 2 to 3 pounds of water every single night when we sleep. So, we start off the day already dehydrated just from respiration, breathing, and urination. So, you definitely want to start there.

The other thing too is, what's better, water or electrolytes? We talk about electrolytes a lot. Do you drink water and then electrolytes later in the day when the water starts to get depleted? I feel like I have some confusion around that—maybe other people do too.

Yeah, sure. Starting out the day with water is great. Most people in their breakfast are getting some electrolytes naturally just with the food that they're eating. I would say that interspersing electrolytes throughout the day is probably the right thing to do. It obviously depends on the demand—the more you're out in the heat, the more salt you're going to lose than if you're just going through your average day.

Most people should be drinking about 7 ounces per hour when working in a high-heat environment. That's kind of the baseline. Most people do not stop to take a drink every 20 minutes of 7 ounces, but if you can pace things out a little, that's better.

We often talk about the difference between guzzling water and sipping water. Sipping is kind of like an irrigation system: long, slow drips of water let the soil absorb it better than a downpour. Guzzling stimulates the urinary reflex, so it tends to go through you quickly and you don’t absorb it as much.

So, hydrate first thing in the morning, intersperse electrolytes every couple of hours, and aim for roughly seven ounces per 20 minutes as a baseline when working in hot environments.

When it comes to physical preparation, doing a dynamic warm-up is a great way to start. You want to get blood flow from your core out to your extremities and skin. Muscles need that blood flow and oxygen before being used physically. We also want to stimulate the sweat reflex to prime the body to dissipate heat through sweat and get our pores ready.

So how often should people take breaks if crews are working in direct sun? Probably sooner than on a 60° day. How long should they work before taking a break to stay safe? My suggestion may differ from OSHA regulations, so don't take this as a formal requirement.

Every hour in direct sunlight and exposure, getting into shade and taking time to rest is a good recommendation. Always have a place where people can rest in the shade. Sometimes it’s not practical, and people are working on a job. One big trap is working in a bucket without water or electrolytes. A 45-minute job can stretch to an hour and a half without fluids, putting people at risk. Planning ahead and taking breaks is critical.

Hey Kevin, it’s funny you talk about planning ahead. I was talking to a safety professional who said that when he sees crews trying to drink a lot of water in the morning, he realizes they’re already behind the eight ball—hydration should have started the day before. That’s a great piece of advice.

One other thing: not all fluids are the same. Some people drink three or four Monster Energy drinks a day. That’s a ton of sugar and stimulation, which strains the adrenal glands. Chronic stress from overstimulation can make the body less effective at regulating salts and water. The body becomes less optimized. Hydration and low-sugar electrolytes are a good recommendation.

Thank you for that. Now, turning to Scott about FR/AR gear: It’s a requirement on most utility job sites, but it’s not all created equal. What features matter most for clothing that performs in heat and lasts?

Great question. When asked if DragonWear offers a product to help fight heat stress, I mentioned the Pro DryTech shirt. We made it using five fibers—the only product on the market with that many fibers. Each fiber does something different. We also added stretch. Clothing with stretch is popular because it allows movement, which Kevin highlighted as critical.

Durability is also important—you don’t want to buy something that lasts only a week or a month. Some fibers wick perspiration, spread it, and dry it so you stay dry. Most importantly, fibers protect from arc flash—the main purpose of the shirt.

The Pro DryTech shirt is light enough for a base layer but has an arc rating high enough to be worn as an outer layer, making it a year-round shirt. Your base layer is critical—it’s the layer against your skin, absorbing and managing perspiration. Wearing something that keeps you dry helps your body remain cool, supporting thermoregulation.

The shirt also addresses UV protection, including the back of the neck. It’s arc-protective, allows a full range of motion, durable, wicking, lightweight, and helps regulate temperature. We’re proud that it checks all these boxes.

Does wicking also help with odor? Yes. We have Silver Plus technology built into the shirt, which helps with odor control—important when working all day in heat. Significant others appreciate this when workers come home.

Kevin, we’ve talked about preventing SIFs—distraction, fatigue, impaired decision-making contribute to incidents. How does heat impact cognitive function, and what can leaders do to reduce risk?

The premise of serious injury and fatality prevention is hazard recognition. The energy wheel helps evaluate job sites for hazards. Heat is part of the energy wheel as radiation. Planning direct controls is key so people can fail safely.

As the job site evolves, conditions change: 65° in the morning may become 110° by mid-afternoon. Heat exposure and dehydration reduce oxygen to the brain, affecting decision-making. Leaders must constantly evaluate crews and conditions.

We use the fingertap test to detect early signs of heat stress—slowing reaction times show loss of motor control. Breaks and check-ins are essential. Jobs evolve; monitoring crews keeps them safe.

Other tools like the Air Quality Index and high-end weather analytics can guide decisions about when it’s safe for crews to be outside. Even smartphones provide UV, heat index, and air quality info. These resources support higher performance and safety.

Final takeaways: Scott emphasizes providing a “tool belt” to fight heat, including performance FR clothing, hydration products, and body preparation strategies. Base layers are critical—they manage perspiration, wick moisture, and keep workers dry and cool, letting them focus on their job rather than discomfort.

Kevin adds: Treat yourself like an athlete. Prepare and maintain your body to perform at the highest level. Take advantage of modern materials, nutrition, hydration, and data from devices to enhance safety and performance. Avoid “the way we’ve always done it” mindset and embrace these tools.

Thank you both for joining today. Contact info for Scott and Kevin will be on our podcast website at utilitysafety.podbean.com for additional questions. Until next time, stay safe and be well.

Note: The views, information, and opinions expressed during this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent Utility Business Media and its employees. Discuss any actions or policy changes with your company management prior to implementation.