By Keri Blakinger
Houston Chronicle
GATESVILLE, Texas — A second Texas prison corrections officer was treated Tuesday for heat-related illness, the latest toll in the triple-digit heat wave that baked inmates and COs alike in the state’s 104 lock-ups.
As the temperatures rose, on Saturday an inmate at the Lane Murray prison in Gatesville was sickened even while sitting in one of the cooled respite areas, officials said. The next day, a corrections officer fell ill at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville.
Then on Tuesday, one prisoner at the Jester III unit in Richmond was treated for mild dehydration, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel. After finishing his shift, one officer at the Lane Murray unit went to a private doctor for treatment of a heat-related illness, officials said.
News of the two additional heat complications came just as the soaring temps started to recede. On Wednesday, the prison system stopped running the command centers set up at every unit to prevent hot weather ailments.
In recent days, inmates’ families expressed concern about the possible impacts of a Texas summer heat wave on prisoners in the state’s sweltering lock-ups. During a similar temperature spike in 2011, ten inmates died from heat stroke.
But this time around, prison officials said in advance that they’d be better prepared, acknowledging that a landmark settlement this year in a civil rights case over life-threatening heat inside one prison unit played a significant role in changing attitudes.
Overall, just 29 Texas prisons provide air-conditioned living units, while another 75 facilities do not have it.
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