Another holiday job gave me insights into heat stress. I was in high school and my holiday job was helping an electrician install fire alarms in a new school. My job was to get into the roof space in the school and dig through the fibreglass insulation and feed the wires from the fire alarm through a hole in the ceiling to the electrician working on a ladder in the classrooms.
The school was in Darwin, which is near to the equator and it was near the peak of summer in November to January. i was able to do the job in 20 minute burst, but then had to come come down to be hosed off to cool off. I suspect it was over 60C in that narrow gap between the galvanised iron roof and the the fibreglass, and of course it was near 100% humidity and there was no air movement.
Of course, after a couple of hours of this incredibly hot work and covered in fibreglass, my skin was red and raw and very itchy. I guess its good for a hygienist to see the worst jobs.
David Bromwich April 2008
