Officials are investigating after a U.S. Postal Service carrier was found dead in her mail truck last week amid record-breaking heat in Los Angeles County, according to multiple reports.
The Los Angeles County coroner's office is investigating the death of Peggy Frank, 63, who was found unresponsive in Woodland Hills as temperatures shot to at least 115 degrees, according to the Los Angeles Times.
A doctor has ordered tests to determine whether Frank's death was related to the heat, the newspaper reported. The tests are expected to take between four and six weeks, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.
Paramedics attempted to revive Frank after she was found Friday afternoon, but she was pronounced dead at the scene, according to KCBS-TV. She had worked for the Postal Service for more than two decades and was just a few years from retirement at the time of her death, according to the newspaper.
Her son, Kirk Kessler, remembered her to KCBS-TV as "great, friendly, sensitive (and) always there for you."
“To have my mom (in) 107 (degrees with) humidity, carrying the mailbag around with no air-conditioning in the car – yeah, I’m sure she’s probably going to overheat,” Kessler told the news station.
Employees at the Woodland Hill post office told the Daily News that "their mail trucks do not have air-conditioning and can get extremely hot inside."
The death is also being investigated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency often tasked with investigating work-related deaths, the Daily News reported.
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