Keeping Utility Workers Safe in Extreme Heat

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 Rindal, 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, so, but before we kind of really dive in, I'd like you both to introduce yourselves a little bit more. Kevin, if you want to go first, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about your background and 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, I had 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 it was part of the 2012, 2016 Olympic teams, and then I did a lot of work with the Brooks Be professional running team as well. So, when it comes to performance, not only soft tissue performance, but also what we call thermal regulation is absolutely critical and 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, I'm a full time Ironman finisher myself and so I, I like to use my body as, testing grounds for, for testing some of these, theories that I, I work on, and what I will tell you is in those long races, thermal regulation 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 and what you do now at Dragonware? 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 Frito-Lay and and then they decided to manufacture FR clothing and and so back in the early 2000s. , when FR clothing was fairly new to electric utilities, and, 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. And then 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 highly of the brand and the clothes, and the thing that really draws me to it is when you are a salesman such as I am, you know, the fact that you get to sell something that actually makes a difference that actually saves people's lives, really gives you a sense of purpose and and I really, we really enjoy that, and, and Dragonware being so innovative, gives me a lot of pride in the products that that they manufacture as well as provide. I feel like they make a difference within the industry. I love that. , so we know that, you know, 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, I did I failed to as part of my introduction to say how 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 Vassi, and now we work with utility workers all across the country and I think the the tie here to your the question that you just asked relates to thinking of frontline workers as industrial athletes, and this all comes back to the fact that like most athletes maybe train or compete 2 to 4 hours a day, but most utility workers, they're out there in exposure like 8 to sometimes 16 hours a day, especially when we're talking about storms and So it all goes back to like taking sports medicine principles and applying those to the workforce, and when it comes to thermal regulation, like, we know that the temperatures are getting hotter. I mean, one of our customers down in Arizona, I mean they had 113 days straight of over 100 degrees. Now that's like pretty severe conditions to be working in, and just like our car, I mean, our vehicles we think about like Does our car have coolant? Are the air filters working? All these things so that we can maintain the thermal regulation of our vehicles, when you're out out there working, I mean you can't be in shade most of the time when you're working out of a bucket on lines. I mean, there is no shade, and so you have to approach that from A real strategy, and that comes down to multiple things. It's, it's making sure you're acclimatized and you're ready to perform in heat. I live in the Pacific Northwest and we get only a handful of days that are warm every year and so if you're not constantly training or testing your body to be able to Be capable of adapting to that those changes. I mean, it can be pretty severe and it doesn't, it could be an 80 degree day that sends somebody in a heat crisis here versus somebody in Arizona who's working in 110 degrees every day. So it's all about training your body actually to to manage heat efficiently and so that's your hydration, it's your electrolyte balance, it's making sure that you're taking breaks. It's actually preparing your body for, warming up, at the start of the day because all your blood stays in your core and so you wanna. rhyme your body to actually get get that blood out to the extremities into the skin so it can start that cooling off process. And so if you just start totally cold, your body is gonna be less efficient, and so that's why like a dynamic warmup can be really, really effective at the start of a shift. So yeah, so many strategies and I, I can't wait for Scott to share about fabric because I'm actually pretty, pretty passionate about fabric because it's kind of like if you've ever had an air filter that doesn't work well. Imagine having this wet heavy cloth on your skin. It actually prevents your body from dissipating heat, and it, it slows down that that whole mechanism from a cooling perspective and, again in athletics right now, what we're realizing athletes are more covered with more fabric now than ever before because of the fabrics are designed to actually wick moisture away from the body, accelerate the cooling process, and so that's that's one of the the neat performance advantages that we have right now is the technology. That allows the human body to actually thermoregulate better, so yeah, I don't know if I totally answered your question there. There's a lot there, but it's, it's just, yeah, we are industrial athletes and, and so it's cool to bring some of these concepts to the workforce. No, I mean, all this stuff you're saying I think is relatable not only to people who work, you know, for utilities, line workers, and, and other people, but I was just thinking about myself, like my husband and I kayak pretty much every weekend, but I had started a, a new medication like last fall, and it wasn't until, you know, like maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago when, I mean, it was in the 90s here, and, you know, my doctor had never said, hey, you're gonna, you might have a reaction in the heat. , so that's like another thing just on top of it. So I was like getting nausea and like Chills, I'm like it's 90 degrees, I shouldn't be getting chills, and I'm like, I think I have like low level like heat exhaustion or heat stress, you know, and so then I had to figure out how do I keep myself regulated when I'm on the boat. I've got the wicking stuff, now I wear a wet towel around my neck all the time, you know. So it's like we're all trying to figure out as it gets higher, like, what do we do? And so yeah, the things that you're talking about, especially that dynamic warm up, I think is something that's really important, And I guess I, you know, my original question was like, what happens to our bodies when we're working in the heat and we haven't taken these steps to acclimatize or, you know, make sure that we can keep our temperature regulated. What kinds of things will you see happening, like if your coworker was experiencing some kind of heat stress, like a pool 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 gonna get the water and who's gonna get the blood flow, who's gonna 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 gonna 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 like small changes in in how somebody's reacting. The other thing too is you'll start to see a lack of coordination, so people start like 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 if you, if you're working with a pole partner and you start to see some of that stuff, it's like, OK, 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 that's 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, 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 doused 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 like real problems can arise. So thank, thank you for that explanation. Totally, the only other thing I would say too is you're the medication piece, that's something that people definitely should be having conversations with their doctors about that because, you know, there are all these medications that are gonna 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, 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. So, 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, and hot environments. And then I'm also curious, you know, how leaders like safety managers and other leaders in these utility companies, like, what are, what should they be evaluating in terms of, you know, mitigating heat stress, UV exposure, like, 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, is, as we know, everybody is different, and, and what you might experience compared to me and Kevin, it all might be different, and so, and that's the same, you know, within. The industry and the CD professionals just trying to find garments that work for everybody, because, there's not a, you know, there's not a one, a silver bullet that that works for everybody, and we have men, we have women, and, and, 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 the 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, so, so finding something that is going to, to keep the sun off of the neck, and so, and, and not just keep the sun off, but also, you know, provide some UV protection. And so, and that's one of the things that that we at Dragonware definitely. Try to do and feel like we have feel like we have accomplished, as far as some of the products that we offered that addressed those specific things. Nice. Like, what kind of options, I mean, it's particularly, you know, we're talking about the neck, what kind of, products do you provide that can, you know, kind of address that? Great question. And so, we provide a shirt that that that's called Pro Dry Tech, and Pro Dry Tech is a lightweight t-shirt that has a hood. And and in addition to it, in addition to the fact that it offers an an 8 count arc rating to to keep the employees protected from an arc flash, it also offers UV protection, and this shirt was made for the summertime. We, it was basically invented because we had a utility worker come to us and tell us that, you know, throughout his time of being In the bucket that he had acquired some skin cancer on the back of his neck. And if we and if we were to make a lightweight t-shirt that had a hood on it, that he thought that there was a need for it, and he was 100% right, and so we did that, and we made the Pro dry tech 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. And then, and then in addition to all that, it's a 5 fiber shirt, meaning that meaning that there's 5 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, and keep the sun off the back of their neck. So we feel like it is a shirt that has has addressed all of those needs and was made for this specific purpose. It's very cool, and I mean, I, I know sometimes there are. Excuse me, but, you know, concerns maybe about pricing and things like that, but I think it's important to point out that, you know, investing in this kind of gear. I think saves money over time, and I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but like, you know, when you talk about injuries, time off of work, you know, you're talking about melanoma, things like that, things that all are going to cost a lot more to handle, rather than just investing the money now that might be, you know, maybe a little bit pricier than, you know, something that's not as well built, but it's gonna do the job, right? Absolutely, you know, we, we've all heard that famous quote, you get what you pay for. And and one thing that we, you know, do at Dragon Ware is we make performance products, because as Kevin said, these are industrial athletes, and so, and industrial athletes need performance products in order for them to perform. , at their very top, and so that when they are out there doing their job, their job is dangerous enough in the best of conditions. And so it's extremely important that when they're out there, that 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 has soaked up a bunch of perspiration. , and so it's extremely important for them to wear products that let them focus on what they're doing, and not the elements and the heat and how uncomfortable they are. If I could jump in too, cause this is something I'm super passionate about as well. I mean, just when you think about the the clothing that athletes wear, they've got to be able to stretch and move and be comfortable, and I always tell people like, if you have a rock in your shoe, it's all you can think about when you're walking and you just want to get that rock out. I, I mean, I've done. Races that have taken me 12 hours and you've got a scene that is rubbing against you and it's just like every step, every run, you know, running motion it's all you can think about. And so if you're on a line and you're working in a situation that there's high voltage, it's a high risk situation, you're already working in the sun. , you know, we talked about how blood is maybe not going to your brain at the same capacity, and so you may be more cloudy, you know, cloudy headed, but then if you have something else that is restricting your motion, that's causing you have to put your body in a different position and put more stress on your body, or if your mind is just distracted by how uncomfortable you are. All those things are increasing your risk of making an error or potentially just not having your head in the game and maybe missing something that might be a high energy hazard that, you know, otherwise if you're totally present, you would totally see that and you put the right direct controls in place. So I, I, I personally think that beyond just thermal regulation, like the clothing that people wear also plays into their overall safety and prevention of more serious injuries. So like when you talk about like The return on investment, I'm just like, man, people have to be again seeing themselves as athletes wearing the clothing that athletes would wear when they're competing. So, this is something that I definitely am super passionate about and it's one reason why we, you know, like the people at Dragon Wars cause they're they're focused on providing that type of equipment. Well, yeah, I mean it's all that is super important and I think, you know, one of the things that we talk a lot about in safety is, you know, don't get distracted, don't be distracted, we have to avoid these distractions and are we considering that, you know, the clothing. I don't know if they have like sweat wing gloves, but like, I'm a person that when I sweat, like my hands are wet all the time, it drives me insane, and that's the kind of thing that like, I would probably be wearing gloves, but if like I had pools of sweat in there, it's like this is gross and I can't focus fully on something else. So I totally get what you're talking about. you mentioned hydration earlier, and I also think, you know, we're talking about training people to Like when they see their coworker potentially exhibiting signs of heat stress to to be able to recognize that, and I just want to point out that's like another reason for, you know, crews to really be working on their interactions with each other and their, you know, their bonds with each other, because the better that you know the people that you're working with, the more likely you are to notice when something is going wrong with them, So, I guess, Kevin, my next question was for you, one of the things that I've heard you talk about before, you know, is the importance of workers' preparation and recovery, especially in those extreme environments. Can you offer some like simple and time efficient strategies that crews can build into their day that are gonna help to reduce heat's physical toll on their bodies? Yeah, absolutely. And I would say that a lot of it starts the day before there, we always say that like the hydration you have today is the hydration you'll have tomorrow. And so when you think about looking at the 10 day forecast, it's like, OK, when I come home today, I need to be like drinking extra fluids, I need to make sure that those fluids are probably not dehydrating me or putting me into, you know, a situation where I wake up with a deficit in the morning. , I'm big on the first thing you should do every day is probably drink about 10 to 20 ounces of water just 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 like respiration and breathing and and urination. So it's like you, you definitely want to start there. , the other thing too is better water or like, you know, we talk about electrolytes a lot and it's like, and so I'm like, do you drink the water and then it's electrolytes later in the day when like the water starts to get depleted or how does that, cause I feel like I have some confusion around that, maybe other people do too. Yeah, no, sure. I think you starting out the day with water is great. Most people in their breakfasts are getting some electrolytes naturally just with the food that they're eating, and so I would say that. Interspersing the electrolytes throughout the day is is probably the right thing to do, and it obviously depends on the demand. I mean, the more you're out in the heat, you're gonna be losing salt at a higher rate than if you're just going through your average day. So, most people should be drinking about 7 ounces per hour is what it comes out to be, when they're working in a high heat environment, so that's kind of like the baseline. Most people do not, You know, stop to take a drink every 20 minutes of 7 ounces every 20 minutes, but what I would say too is that if you can try to pace things out a little bit, that's better. We oftentimes talk about the difference between guzzling water and just sipping water, and the sipping, it's kind of like, you know, if you have an irrigation system and you're just like, Doing long slow drips of irrigation, the the soil can absorb it a lot better than like a downpour. Like a flood. Yeah, exactly, and so guzzling, you're you're actually stimulating the urinary reflex and so it tends to go through you pretty quickly, and you don't necessarily absorb it quite as much. So I'd say, yeah, hydrate first thing in the morning, intersperse electrolytes every couple hours into what you're drinking. , 7 ounces per 20 minutes is kind of the baseline, it working in hot environments, and then when it comes to just physical preparation, yeah, doing a dynamic warm up, I think is a great way to start cause again what you want to do is you want to get blood flow from your core, out to your extremities, out to your skin. our muscles need that blood flow, need that oxygen, before they go out and start to be used physically. , and then we want to stimulate the, the sweat reflex so that we can start to heat up so that we can prime the body to dissipate that heat through, sweat and get our pores ready to go. Well, so how often should people be like, if, if you've got crews that are working in direct sun, I'm assuming like, probably a best practice would be to have them break. Like sooner than maybe they would like on a day when it was only 60 degrees out, like, how long should they be working before they're, you know, taking a break just to keep them safe. Yeah, sure, and what I say is probably different than what OSHA says. I mean, OSHA has regulations, so I don't want anybody to take my recommendations and say this this is this is what this is what to do, but, yeah, I, I think that, you know, every hour if you're in direct sunlight and you're in, you know, straight exposure, getting into shade, being able to take some, some time to rest is probably a really good recommendation. so you should always have a place where people can rest in the shade and get out of that direct sunlight. again, it's sometimes it's not practical and people are working on a job, and I would say that one of the the big traps that people fall into. they're working in a bucket, they don't have any water electrolytes with them, and you know, it starts out to be probably like a 45 minute job and they're like, oh, I can do another 5 minutes and then it turns into an hour and a half hour 45 minute job, and they've had zero fluids, and that's when people start to get into trouble. So again it it really goes into planning ahead and sometimes saying we just, we have to take a break here, otherwise people are gonna be at risk. Kevin, it's funny that you talk about planning the head. I was talking to a safety professional, and he said that when he comes in in the morning and sees crews that are trying to drink a lot of water and get everything that and that he realizes that they're already behind the eight ball, something that probably should have started the day before. Something that I definitely learned from you. So, so thank you for that piece. Yeah, one other thing along those lines is that not all fluids are the same and so you see a lot of people drinking 3 or 4 Monster Energy drinks a day, and that's the reality, and so they're getting a ton of sugar, they're getting a lot of stimulation, and that starts to strain the adrenal cortex of the adrenal glands or organs that are on the the kidneys. And what can happen is that chronic stress from overstimulation can actually cause the body to be less effective at regulating, you know, salts and water and, and so anyhow, your, your body can become basically, Not incapacitated, but definitely not optimized when we're constantly stimulating it. And so it's just something to keep, keep track of like not everything is the same, so I, I would, that's where I would say the hydration and then electrolytes that don't have a ton of sugar is also a good recommendation as well. Awesome, thank, thank you for that. I wanna turn back to Scott for a minute and Talk to him about how FRAR gear is, you know, it's a requirement for, I would say most utility job sites, you know, but it's not all created equal. We've talked about that. So what do you think, what are the features that matter most when it comes to, you know, clothing that performs well in the heat, but also is gonna, you know, last for a while. Great question, and, and one of the things, when you were asking me, you know, does Dragonware offer a product to, to help fight heat stress and, and, and I mentioned the Prodry tech. And, and the reason that I mentioned that shirt was because we made that shirt using 5 fibers. it's the only product on the market that uses that many fibers, and, and the reason that we use that many fibers cause they all do something different. , and, and one of the things that we have added to it is stretch. clothing that has some stretch to it is very popular within the industry, and as Kevin said, you know, it's very important for them to, to be able to move around. it's, it's very important for them to have something that is gonna last a while, and so we have a fiber in there that adds durability. , and so because you don't wanna purchase something that it only lasts a week or a month, and you've spent some good money on, on this product, so, so stretch and durability is important. And then there's fibers in there that wick. That take perspiration, spread it, and dry it, so that you're always dry. And then, of course, the most important of all, you know, there's fibers in there that protect them from arc flash, which is the main purpose of the shirt. So, so be able to find a product that can do all of those things, give you the range of motion to move, keep you dry, a durable product, and, and at the same time, you know, protect you from heat stress. One of the things that I like to, I think is a great analogy when I talk about the pro dry tech shirt, is that it's a shirt that is light enough for them to be worn as their base layer, so their undershirt. However, the arc rating on it is high enough that it can be worn as their outer layer. so it's a year-round shirt, and so, so finding something that can meet all of those needs, because the one thing that is so important when it comes to Planning for your day. Whatever you're wearing as your base layer, that is the most important layer, because that is the layer that's up against your skin. That is the layer that is gonna be right up against and and and taking in all of the perspiration and sweat that you have throughout the day. And the question is, are you wearing something that's going to absorb perspiration and hold on to it? And keep you wet, or you're wearing something that's going to to absorb it, spread it, and keep you dry, because if you're dry, then your body is going to remain cool. I know that's something that Kevin speaks highly about is thermal regulation. And part of that is staying dry. so we feel like we've provided something that that meets all of those different needs, arc protection, range of motion, durability, wicking, lightweight, you know, UV protection, protecting the back of your neck. Those are a lot of boxes to check, and so, and, and we feel pretty proud that we've been able to offer something that checks them all. Well, so out of my, just for my curiosity, when you, you know, when you have things that are wicking and, you know, so you're staying drier, does that also help with like odor too, you know, like I know a lot of us we smell when we sweat a lot, does it help from a, you know, like you're with other people, it's nice to not smell awful if you can. so I was just curious if that like helps with the odor issue. Well, we, we have a silver plus technology built into the shirt, and what that does is that helps with the odor. And so, so we do have a a feature built into the shirt that specifically addresses odor, and so because, you know, you're working all day out in the heat and, you know. You might get a little sneaky throughout the day, and so, but that's something that we have addressed as well, so that means that's a really good question, something that a lot of people don't think about. I know that the that the significant others think about it when their spouses come home from the day, and so, so that's something that we have built into that shirt as well. Nice. Yeah, my husband is very like, even with himself, he's very sensitive to it, so he would be like, oh my God, that's awesome, cause I would stink. , thank you, thank you for sharing that. You're welcome. So, Kevin, I think we kind of talked about this already, you know, a lot of almost all utility organizations are focusing on preventing sifts or serious injuries and fatalities. So we know that like distraction, fatigue, impaired decision making can contribute to those incidents. You know, can you just kind of refresh us on like what it's gonna do to the cognitive function. And and what leaders can really do to just reduce risk overall when it comes to heat and keeping our personnel safe. Yeah, for sure. And really the big premise behind the whole serious injury and fatality prevention with this high energy framework is thinking about Hazard recognition, so we have the energy wheel that helps guide people at evaluating a job site so that they can see what are the risks that are out there, and we know things like gravity, motion, some of those those more obvious hazards are the things that are quickly seen. , but heat is actually one of the components of the energy wheel, so it's radiation is, so heat is a form of radiation, and so when people are analyzing a job site or planning for the day, one of the most important principles is putting the correct direct controls in place so that people can fail. Safely, that's, that's the whole premise here is that we engineer the environment so that people can be safe. And so as people are evaluating a job site and they're thinking about the work that's going to be done, thinking and knowing that heat is going to be a component, that's where you put the correct direct controls in place at the start of the the day so that people can, you know, stay safe, and so that, you know, goes to like having a place of shade, making sure that there's water electrolytes on and. On, on site, but as the day goes on, the job site is evolving and, and the, you know, it may be 65 degrees in the morning and it may be 110, you know, by mid-afternoon, and so, What we know is that when people are exposed to heat, like we talked about, if you're dehydrated, if you're working in a hot environment, there's less oxygen going up to the brain and so people are gonna be probably not making as high quality decisions when it comes to putting their correct direct controls in place or identifying hazards as of the job. You know, progresses throughout the day and so it is one of those things that if, if you're at a job site just be constantly staying on top of things, looking at how the job is progressing through the day, how the environment is changing throughout the day, making sure that your crew is ready. We have a a test that sometimes we have people do we call it the finger tap test, and our reaction times start to slow down, and that's one of the earliest signs of dehydration or heat stresses if people can't efficiently even tap their fingers together because we start to lose motor control is one of the first signs. So there are some things that people can do at different points throughout the day at breaks or at lunch, to just make sure that their crews are ready to go, but again it it it is. Realizing that the way that the job starts is not the same, by 20 p.m. in the afternoon, and so really evaluating the crews and looking for how you can keep the crew

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