It was 4 p.m. and the temperature reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit when farm worker Carlos Vargas Moreno and other day laborers began removing weeds from a watermelon field in Goldsboro, North Carolina, on July 19, 2022.
The workday had begun at 7 a.m. and included two 15-minute breaks and an hour for lunch outdoors. The heat index—the temperature perceived by the human body when relative humidity and air temperature are combined—was 98.3 degrees Fahrenheit. It was the kind of day that a heat safety app created by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) defined as “hazardous” for those who work outdoors.
According to court documents, government records, and testimony from workers present that day, Vargas Moreno stopped to drink water shortly before 6 p.m. A few seconds later, he staggered and fell to the ground. He was later diagnosed with heatstroke.
Since then, the 38-year-old man has been unable to walk or care for himself. In the absence of federal and state regulations protecting farmworkers from dangerous heat, his employer has rarely been held accountable for twice failing to comply with numerous basic safety measures, including workplace supervision and timely access to emergency medical care. Vargas Moreno's family is sharing his story for the first time with Prism. The Guardian y Enlace Latino NC, while she continues to adjust to her new life in North Carolina.
Heatstroke is a preventable condition, and Vargas Moreno's employers, a company called Florida Orange Gold, should have been aware of that risk. Almost exactly two years earlier, another man employed by the company, Carmen Sebastian Hernandez Mosqueda, died from the same cause while also clearing brush in a field in North Carolina.
“I had to endure the work”
Since “the accident,” everything in Vargas Moreno’s life has changed, said Daysi Romero Arellano, his wife.
“Accident” is a mild way of putting it. The heat stroke caused a brain injury and a disability that forces him to use a wheelchair. Now Romero Arellano bathes her husband, dresses him, helps him go to the bathroom, and feeds him.
“Nothing is the same,” Romero Arellano said through an interpreter during an interview in August. Seated next to Vargas Moreno, she affectionately stroked his head. “Right, Carlos?” she asked. Vargas Moreno met his wife’s gaze and nodded.
Due to the brain injury, which caused cognitive and language deficits, Vargas Moreno cannot verbally express the facts related to his case.
To produce this report, Prism, The Guardian y Enlace Latino NC They spoke with the farmworker's family; with attorneys Katherine and Francisco Bricio, who represented Vargas Moreno in his workers' compensation case and in his civil lawsuit; and with Aaron Jacobson, of the Farmworker Unit at Legal Aid of North Carolina, who is currently representing him in an immigration case.
This report also draws on thousands of pages of government records and court documents. These include sworn statements from farmworkers, Florida Orange Gold employees, and officials from the North Carolina Department of Labor (NCDOL). The accounts contain conflicting information, including about whether the workers had enough water or breaks during the extreme heat.
Florida Orange Gold has denied that Vargas Moreno's condition resulted from a work-related injury; the worker later won a workers' compensation case. The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the allegations against it listed in NC DOL records and in Vargas Moreno's case. When Prism, The Guardian y Enlace Latino NC They called a phone number registered to Gilberto Gutierrez, the accounting manager for Florida Orange Gold. The person who answered hung up and did not respond to text messages. No one responded to inquiries sent to the company's email address.
Vargas Moreno first worked for Florida Orange Gold in 2021 as part of the federal H-2A visa program for temporary agricultural workers. He was an experienced farmworker: he had previously worked alongside his wife in the fields of Mexico, harvesting strawberries, asparagus, and blueberries. When a relative told him about the H-2A program, Vargas Moreno told his wife that he wanted to work in the United States so she could stay home and raise their young daughter.
He eventually joined Florida Orange Gold, a company founded in 2017 by agricultural labor contractor Jose Javier Gutierrez. Florida Orange Gold obtained approximately 500 H-2A workers in 2022, and Vargas Moreno was one of the 314 sent to North Carolina that year. Gutierrez's father was also a worker recruiter and owned his own business. Gilberto is Jose's brother.
The company operates in Florida and North Carolina and is one of hundreds of intermediaries nationwide hired by U.S. agricultural producers to recruit migrant farmworkers and oversee their work. Farm labor contractors constitute the fastest growing segment of agricultural employment and are the biggest offenders of federal labor laws in agriculture. Although they are responsible for hundreds of vulnerable workers in an industry plagued by wage theft, trafficking for the purpose of labor exploitation and other serious abusesThese contractors do not need special training or certification.
Her husband's decision to enter the H-2A program now haunts Romero Arellano. “Our life in Mexico was poor, but it was simple, and we shared everything. I wish we had made it with what little we had,” she said in the couple's Raleigh apartment. Balloons and garlands adorned the dining room, remnants of another WhatsApp birthday celebration for their 13-year-old daughter, who lives in Mexico.
During Vargas Moreno's second year with Florida Orange Gold, which began in May 2022, he started sharing alarming details about his work when he would call his wife during meals and at night, upon returning to the workers' camp where he was staying.
“He said they made him work very hard and that there wasn’t enough water; that there was no way to carry water with them while they worked and that they weren’t given enough breaks to drink water,” he recalled.
As part of Vargas Moreno's workers' compensation case following his injury, she stated under oath in June 2024 that her husband told her daily that Florida Orange Gold was not providing them with sufficient breaks. He also told her that workers had to purchase their own water to keep at the camp and that there were not enough refrigerators to keep drinks cold. According to her account, Vargas Moreno also described meetings where Florida Orange Gold discussed H-2A workers quitting their jobs.
The work was relentless. From July 16, 2022, until he suffered heatstroke around 5:50 p.m. on July 19, Vargas Moreno worked between eight and 11 hours a day. The heat index never dropped below 94.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
When he collapsed, there were no Florida Orange Gold supervisors on site. Farmworkers often have little control over their working conditions and environment, said Taylor Arnold, an assistant professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine who studies the effects of heat on children working in agriculture.
“Often, workers are widely dispersed over a large area. Because of this, they may not notice if someone is in danger and may not receive adequate training on what to do if someone is suffering from heatstroke. Workers may have difficulty communicating their exact location to emergency personnel because the camps are often in remote locations or lack easily identifiable addresses. All of these factors together are extremely dangerous,” Arnold said.
Vargas Moreno's coworkers didn't know what to do when he began convulsing. One worker called Florida Orange Gold founder Jose Gutierrez, who was at another field several miles away. Gutierrez didn't tell the workers to call 911, nor did he call himself. Instead, the contractor told them to wait for him.
The workers loaded Vargas Moreno onto a bus without air conditioning and drove it to the side of a nearby road. Already unconscious, Vargas Moreno was placed on the ground outside the bus until Gutierrez arrived about 15 minutes later. Instead of putting him in the cab of his air-conditioned, four-door pickup truck, Gutierrez had the workers load him into the bed of the truck.
When they arrived at the emergency room at 6:32 p.m., Vargas Moreno was unresponsive, covered in vomit, and had a body temperature of 109 degrees Fahrenheit. He remained hospitalized for almost a year.
During Romero Arellano's sworn testimony, Gutierrez's lawyer asked him if Vargas Moreno was the type of person capable of defending himself and requesting to work fewer hours. Romero Arellano hesitated.
“Yes,” he said, but he also wanted to “obey the bosses” who paid him. “He said he had to put up with the work.”
In a sworn statement, Jose Gutierrez did say that on the day of Vargas Moreno's injury, he asked the workers if they wanted to continue working in the scorching 3 p.m. heat; he claimed they said yes. During the NC DOL's investigation into Vargas Moreno's heat stroke, weeks after the incident, workers that Florida Orange Gold made available to the department for interviews stated that they had agreed to continue working; that they had previously received heat stress training; that they had taken extra breaks that day; and that Florida Orange Gold often ended shifts early if it got too hot. But other H-2A workers who later testified under oath in Vargas Moreno's workers' compensation case contradicted those statements, leading attorneys to suspect that the farm labor contractor may have coached some of them to answer.
Johana Ramirez, the NC DOL safety compliance inspector who led the investigation into Vargas Moreno's heat stroke, noted some of these inconsistencies in her records. In her own sworn statement, Ramirez said she learned of the workers' decision to continue from company sources, not from the farmworkers themselves.
Refusing to work has severe consequences for H-2A workers. Florida Orange Gold required them to sign a statement saying, “I understand that if I refuse to do any work or leave early, I will lose my job and the three-quarters guarantee, housing benefit, and transportation.” Losing an H-2A job also means losing the ability to work legally in the United States.
You may be interested: They took his passport, charged him thousands of dollars, and paid him less than he was owed: the H-2A worker who dared to speak out
The norm is that there is no norm.
While Vargas Moreno felt he had no other option, Florida Orange Gold did not adopt life-saving practices for workers that had been strongly recommended to him after the death of a farmworker during the scorching summer of 2020 in the South.
Carmen Sebastian Hernandez Mosqueda was one of 40 H-2A workers who spent July 18, 2020, pruning tobacco plants and weeding sweet potato rows by hand. That week, the National Weather Service issued a dangerous heat advisory. Even so, Florida Orange Gold's H-2A workers spent 11 to 12 hours a day in the fields.
At approximately 4 p.m., when the heat index peaked at 108 degrees Fahrenheit, Hernandez Mosqueda reportedly said he wanted to take the rest of the day off because he “felt tired.” Upon leaving the field, he collapsed.
There was no Florida Orange Gold supervisor on site and the workers did not call 911.
The nearest hospital to the field was UNC Health Johnston, located about 24 minutes away in Smithfield. But for unknown reasons, Hernandez Mosqueda was driven for 14 minutes to a parking lot in Newton Grove, where he was transferred to another vehicle. While en route to Sampson Regional Medical Center, 22 minutes away, Hernandez Mosqueda lost consciousness. Only then was 911 called, 50 minutes after the worker first collapsed. Records do not clearly indicate who was driving each vehicle or who called 911.
Heatstroke is an emergency where every minute counts. When an ambulance arrived at 5:07 p.m., Hernandez Mosqueda's body temperature was 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit. By 5:15 p.m., he was dead. He was 25 years old. Later, the medical examiner recorded hyperthermia as the cause of death.
Neither the state of North Carolina nor the federal OSHA has a heat safety regulation requiring employers to establish criteria for access to drinking water, breaks, and temperature control. However, OSHA recommended that employers implement a heat stress prevention plan to “control the risk of heat stress”. general duty clause The Occupational Safety and Health Act also requires employers to provide a workplace “free from recognized hazards” that “may cause death or serious physical harm to employees.”
As part of the NC DOL's investigation into Hernandez Mosqueda's death, an unnamed Florida Orange Gold employee was asked if the company had a heat stress prevention program. "If it's hot, take a break," the employee told the investigator.
The employee also said that the workers carry a banana and “wet it to cool down.” When asked to clarify, he explained that a wet banana peel can be placed around a person’s neck to cool them down.
Finally, the NC DOL cited Florida Orange Gold for multiple violations, including a violation of the general duty clause. For the death of Hernandez Mosqueda, the department proposed a $7,000 fine and demanded that the company eliminate the danger through the immediate implementation of a heat stress prevention program, to prevent another worker from dying or suffering serious physical harm.
When Vargas Moreno suffered heat stroke, Florida Orange Gold had not adjusted the H-2A workers' schedules to account for the temperature, which constituted a direct violation of the heat stress prevention program that the contractor allegedly implemented after Hernandez Mosqueda's death, said Katherine Bricio, Vargas Moreno's attorney in her workers' compensation case and civil lawsuit.
According to the testimony of the NC DOL farm safety and health inspector who investigated Hernandez Mosqueda's death, Florida Orange Gold had to be reminded to remedy its violation of the general duty clause and submit its heat stress prevention program. In April 2021, months after the company received the initial citation for the worker's death, Florida Orange Gold submitted its program to the agency: a template from the NC DOL website. The contractor made no modifications to the heat stress prevention program template, except to insert "Florida Orange Gold" in the blanks and name Gilberto Gutierrez as responsible for implementing the plan.
“Simply put: a worker died, and Florida Orange Gold signed a government document promising to correct the hazard the worker had been exposed to. Instead, they plastered their names all over a form and never looked at it again,” said Katherine Bricio, who, along with her husband, Francisco, filed a lawsuit against Florida Orange Gold and the Gutierrez brothers. Howell Farming, the North Carolina agricultural company that hired the broker to bring Vargas Moreno and other H-2A workers to the state, and in whose field he was clearing weeds when he collapsed, was also sued. At press time, Howell Farms had not responded to a request for comment on whether the company was still contracting with Florida Orange Gold and whether it had taken any steps since Vargas Moreno’s heat stroke to ensure the farm labor company followed a heat stress prevention program.
If truly implemented, the NC DOL's model plan covers many aspects: emergency preparedness, training to recognize heat-related illnesses, and measures employers can take to protect workers. These include implementing a peer support system during emergencies, providing electrolyte drinks to workers, and using the OSHA/NIOSH Heat Safety Tool to monitor and shorten shifts when temperatures are dangerously high.
According to the Gutierrez brothers' own sworn testimony, Florida Orange Gold took no precautions other than providing water before Vargas Moreno's hospitalization. Even years later, the Gutierrez brothers were unable to answer basic questions about their own heat stress prevention plan.
In sworn statements from May 2024, Gilberto Gutierrez said that no one at Florida Orange Gold was responsible for checking weather conditions, even though his name appears repeatedly in the company's heat stress prevention plan as the person responsible for doing so. Jose was completely unfamiliar with the term "heat index" and did not know what electrolytes were. Neither of the brothers had ever heard of the buddy system.
“There hasn’t been much accountability”
Leticia Zavala is often one of the first to learn of tragedies suffered by farmworkers. Zavala organizes H-2A workers in North Carolina with the farmworker advocacy group El Futuro Es Nuestro (The Future Is Ours), which launched its Not One More Death campaign to address the working conditions of these workers.
He learned of Vargas Moreno's case shortly after his hospitalization. As tragic as his story is, he said that the exact same thing happened to another H-2A worker in 2025.
“Last night I was at the hospital, visiting another worker who suffered from heatstroke,” Zavala said during an interview on August 4.
Agricultural workers have 35 times more likely of dying from heat-related illnesses more than workers in other industries, and as temperatures become more extreme due to the climate changeThe effects on these workers will be devastating. A record-breaking heat wave has hit the south of the country This month, and also earlier this summer, nighttime temperatures across the country rarely dipped below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, a phenomenon that will become increasingly commonResearchers are now studying the cumulative effects of heat on H-2A workers whose bodies never have a chance to rest or fully recover because their camps lack air conditioning.
As each year passes It becomes the hottest on recordWhat's really needed is a standard on heat. In July 2024, the Biden administration published a proposed standard which required employers to develop and implement plans for the prevention of heat-related injuries and illnesses, although employers the they questioned The proposal largely stalled, but in August the Trump administration... announced plans to introduce changespro-business".
At the local level, those who defend workers in North Carolina also face a difficult battle.
The North Carolina Heat Stress Coalition, comprised of workers, unions, and organizations like El Futuro Es Nuestro (The Future Is Ours), has been lobbying the state for years to adopt a heat stress law. Last year, members of the coalition met with North Carolina's new Labor Commissioner, Luke Farley, who had previously stated he was not in favor of adopting a heat stress law.
Zavala said the commissioner only spent a few minutes with them and never mentioned that he planned to create their own advice on heat stress, dominated by employer representatives.
“His advice is a political maneuver,” Zavala said. “He may claim to be concerned about workers, but in reality, he’s just protecting industry groups.”
El Heat Stress Advisory Council Farley, who met once This summer, it includes industry groups such as the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA), the nation's largest employer of H-2A workers, and an organization linked for a long time with the mistreatment of agricultural workers.
At press time, Farley's office had not responded to questions about his advisory role or his position on implementing a heat stress standard. The NC DOL also did not respond to questions about its research practices, oversight of heat stress prevention programs, and companies that repeatedly violate the general duty clause. The NCGA did not respond to questions about its treatment of workers or its role on the Heat Stress Advisory Council.
A NC DOL safety compliance inspector who had previously investigated Florida Orange Gold stated under oath that it is important to launch an investigation immediately after a serious injury so that employers do not have time to “clean up the scene.” That same NC DOL employee began her investigation into the incident that nearly cost Vargas Moreno his life seven weeks after it occurred. This was because the Gutierrez brothers failed to notify the agency about Vargas Moreno’s hospitalization. The law requires notification within 24 hours, and it was attorney Francisco Bricio who made the call on September 2, 2022.
“Tragically, farmworkers die almost every year, but it’s hard to say Carlos is ‘lucky,’” said Jacobson, Vargas Moreno’s attorney in his immigration case. “I believe Florida Orange Gold’s intention was to leave Carlos in the hospital and not tell anyone what had happened.”
In the Vargas Moreno case, the NC DOL ultimately determined that Florida Orange Gold was not following its heat stress prevention program and had again violated the general duty clause. For these and other violations, the department proposed a fine of more than $42,000 against the contractor and again required it to implement a heat stress prevention program.
Beyond those fines, “there hasn’t been much accountability,” Jacobson said. “Meanwhile, Carlos has limited options regarding the legal actions he can take.”
Although Vargas Moreno ultimately won his workers' compensation case, his claim was initially rejected. Francisco Bricio said that Florida Orange Gold first denied that his injuries were work-related and then denied that his brain injury was related to hyperthermia. Last month, the worker's civil lawsuit was dismissed, despite what Francisco Bricio described as "false records and fraudulent affidavits" filed by Florida Orange Gold. These included 2024 affidavits from H-2A workers claiming they had received heat stress training before Vargas Moreno's heat stroke. However, many of those same workers had testified under oath in November 2022 that they had not received such training.
As recently as this month, Florida Orange Gold was looking to hire 700 H-2A workers in North Carolina. Jacobson said he is concerned about the treatment of these workers, but that the company had rejected previous efforts from his office to reach out to them.
In North Carolina, farmworkers generally have the legal right to receive visitors in the housing provided by their employers. But, according to Jacobson, in incidents dating back to at least 2019, Jose Gutierrez and members of his family have verbally and physically assaulted Jacobson and other Legal Aid employees and volunteers for trying to speak with the workers.
It could be argued that agricultural labor contractors like Florida Orange Gold operate with impunity because they are enabled by legislators, landowners, state and federal agencies, and local officials. Records related to the Vargas Moreno case offer a unique perspective on how this happens.
In court proceedings, lawyers argue about who has a duty to ensure the safety of H-2A workers and whether strenuous agricultural work in extreme heat is truly dangerous. The likelihood of an injured worker receiving medical attention hinges on the difference between a safety “recommendation” and a “requirement,” regardless of whether that small measure could save their life.
Almost nowhere in this system is there an expression of a desire to do things better, to improve working conditions, to create a standard on heat so that workers do not suffer catastrophic injuries or return to their families in body bags.
Romero Arellano said that his motivation for making his story public is the hope that what happened to his family will change these conditions.
“Those in power need to do something so that what happened to Carlos doesn’t happen to anyone else,” she said. Regarding her husband, Romero Arellano stated, “Justice is impossible.”
This report was published in collaboration with The Guardian US y Prism.
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