There are plenty of tough jobs out there, but being a delivery worker feels like its own special kind of hell. It’s not uncommon to hear stories about how brutal the conditions can be for people working at Amazon or USPS. A recent incident in Dallas, Texas, just reinforced that reality. A TikToker by the name of @gorgeousellecee posted a short video addressing a heartbreaking moment where a USPS driver reportedly passed away from heat exhaustion. She explained that she had just stepped outside to walk her dog when she noticed a crowd gathering around a white USPS van. People were yelling, clearly panicked, and when she got closer, she saw a man passed out inside the vehicle.
Not long after, she witnessed ambulance workers attempting to resuscitate the man. Understandably shaken, she took to TikTok to ask a question many have wondered before: why isn’t USPS doing more to protect its workers, especially in extreme weather? Why weren’t their vans equipped with air conditioning when it was clearly scorching outside?
The Dallas woman was particularly upset because her own grandmother had worked for the postal service, and she grew up seeing the pride and effort that came with that job. It hurt to think that such a long-standing institution could fail its employees so deeply. She went on to talk about how funding for USPS has been cut so severely that they’re now understaffed, with one person expected to do the work of several.
It wasn’t just the woman from Dallas who was heartbroken over the incident. Many people online expressed their shock and frustration at what happened to the USPS worker. One user shared, “It was 99 with a heat index of 110 in Maryland today, and it’s supposed to hit 115 over the next three days. Management refuses to let us start earlier to avoid the heat and even turns off the AC in the morning to push us out faster. On top of that, they gave everyone extra work today, with some people covering two full routes. Nobody cares about the carriers, and it just keeps getting worse.”
Another person spoke up about their own experience, saying their wife had worked as a USPS worker for over two years. They added, “Last summer, she fell asleep in the truck for a few minutes because of the heat. She woke up startled and shaken. After that, she quit. Trash benefits, trash management, trash pay, and heavily overworked.”
