Pablo Ordaz spent the last days of his life working inside a metal barn where the temperature reached 106 degrees. Co-workers said his employer sometimes yelled at him for drinking water.

State regulators believe the heat overwhelmed him. Ordaz, a legal migrant worker, died after walking off the job and collapsing in an isolated patch of the Person County farm, hundreds of miles from his family in Mexico.

Ordaz's boss argued that he might have died of natural causes, but state officials say he is one of six farmworkers who died of heatstroke or suspected heatstroke in the past two summers. That's double the number of heat deaths in all the state's other industries combined during the same time.

In California, which uses far more farmworkers than the estimated 200,000 who come to North Carolina each year, five deaths in 2005 prompted a new state law requiring cool-off areas, breaks and training about heat sickness. In Washington state, one death in 2005 led to similar rules.

In North Carolina, the deaths -- four in 2005 and two in 2006 -- drew virtually no public notice. No state laws are designed to protect workers from heat illness.

Since 2005, there were three heat deaths in other industries, according to statistics from the state Labor Department. Two were employees at manufacturing plants and one worked for a tire service.

Advocates say that the circumstances of farmworkers -- many of whom come from the world's poorest regions, are desperate to feed their families, and cannot speak English -- make them more likely to work themselves to death.

"A lot of workers don't have a sense of security that they can stop and take breaks without losing their jobs or being deported," said Lori Elmer, a farmworker advocate with Legal Aid of North Carolina, which provides lawyers to the poor.

Farmers say not every case is negligence. Sometimes the worker is overweight or has a health condition that makes heat sickness worse. Sometimes a worker refuses to take breaks or rest in the shade. Many say they do their best to protect their workers, but the nature of the job sometimes makes long, hot days unavoidable.

Keith Parrish, a Harnett County tobacco farmer who employs nine workers from Mexico, said he provides plenty of water and, when temperatures soar, often starts his workers at 6 a.m. so they can finish before noon. But sometimes, he said, the tobacco has to be harvested, heat or no. He said he has never had a worker get sick from the heat.

"I just keep an eye on everyone and make sure nobody has that weird look in their eye," Parrish said. "But these guys are used to the weather. It doesn't seem to affect them as badly as it would me."

Regina Luginbuhl, head of the state Labor Department's Agricultural Safety and Health Bureau, investigates farm deaths. She said many who die haven't had a chance to get acclimated.

"These guys get off the bus and they start working all day," Luginbuhl said. "They are totally unprepared."

New on the job

In the three cases for which the Labor Department issued fines, two workers had started their jobs only two or three days before they died, and Ordaz had been in the field less than two weeks. All three were legal workers from Mexico.

Of the remaining three cases, one is still being investigated, and the others were outside the Labor Department's jurisdiction to issue fines. The department has authority to regulate farms only when the farmer provides housing and has more than 10 workers.

Advocates say the hazards of heat are made worse by a culture in which workers feel pressure to work quickly and are afraid to complain. Even if the farmer doesn't prohibit water breaks, some say, workers may avoid them to appear more productive.

Many workers also live in housing that farmers provide, much of it not air conditioned and, sometimes, not equipped with fans. Those workers may never properly cool off, said Alex Jones, the North Carolina director of the National Farmworker Ministry.

"A lot of times, workers are in barracks or in trailers," Jones said. "These are metal buildings. It's like an oven inside, essentially."

Refusing to rest

In most cases that the Labor Department documented, there is no evidence that workers were denied water or breaks. In some cases, the workers had health problems.

Rito Mesa Castillo, who died in July 2005, was in his 50s and overweight -- both factors that make heatstroke worse. The farmer told Labor Department inspectors that he had no choice but to allow Castillo to harvest tobacco, because Castillo's contract as a migrant worker guaranteed him work. The farmer was fined $1,500 for the death.

In other deaths, workers ignored their bosses' entreaties to rest.

Jaen Mario Meneses was harvesting sweet potatoes in October 2005, his second day on the job. He became ill and, despite being told to sit down, continued working. He eventually staggered off the field and was unconscious before an ambulance arrived. The farmer was fined $500.

In virtually every case, both the workers and the farmer appeared unaware of the signs of heatstroke. None got immediate medical care for their symptoms.

Castillo was left for at least an hour under a tree next to the field. Meneses was told to go sit in a bus, labor records show.

Buzzards circling

Ordaz, holding his head and unable to work, was allowed to walk alone to the trailer he shared with other workers, nearly half a mile away, on a day when the heat index reached 103 degrees, Labor Department documents show.

The next day, workers told their employer that Ordaz wasn't there. Farmer Danny Walker called his labor supplier to request another worker, saying Ordaz had "run off," records show.

Ordaz's fellow workers found his body more than three days later, when they saw buzzards circling.

The workers later told inspectors that Walker allowed them only one five-minute break and a one-hour lunch during workdays that stretched past 10 hours. They said he berated them for taking too long to drink water, records show.

Walker, of Roxboro, was fined $4,125. His lawyer, Joe Weinberger of Roxboro, declined to comment, and efforts to reach Walker failed. In his letters to the Labor Department, Weinberger said Walker believed that Ordaz had a heart attack unrelated to the heat.

Because Ordaz's body was found too late, the coroner could not confirm that he died of heatstroke, but there was no other obvious cause of death, records show. The Labor Department counts his death among the heat-related fatalities.

Leticia Zavala, of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, a union to which Ordaz belonged, said Ordaz came to North Carolina hoping to earn enough to build a house for his wife, his son and his unborn baby.

Instead, Zavala said, his wife had to take a low-paying factory job to cover the cost of his burial, along with that of his infant son, who died a few months after birth.

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