Chickasaw County Coroner confirms farm worker’s cause of death

CHICKASAW COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) -The Chickasaw County Coroner’s Office is releasing new information on the death of an agricultural worker in September.

In a press release, Coroner Larry Harris reports that 24-year-old Obed Azahel Hernandez Perez died of Extreme Environmental Heat Exposure and that the Manner of Death was Accidental.

Hernandez Perez succumbed to an elevated core body temperature resulting from prolonged exposure to the heat while harvesting sweet potatoes in Chcikasaw County. He was taken to Progressive Health Emergency Room in Houston on September 8th, but did not survive.

His body has been released and taken back to his home in Mexico.

Harris states that the investigation is being continued by OSHA and the Mississippi Department of Agriculture.