Baltimore DPW worker who died on job in 2024 had ‘literally no training,’ according to attorney for family

Attorney Thiru Vignarajah, center, speaks outside Baltimore City Hall on March 12 alongside family members of Ronald Silver II, who died while working for the Department of Public Works. Kevin Richardson/Staff

The Baltimore attorney representing the family of Ronald Silver II says the Department of Public Works trash collector received no formal training before dying on the job last summer.

“These men had literally no training,” attorney Thiru Vignarajah said during a news conference Wednesday in front of Baltimore City Hall. “Not virtually no training, literally no training before they undertook a very dangerous job.”

Silver died from heat exhaustion Aug. 2, a day that reached 99 degrees and had a heat index well into the triple digits. Members of his family attended Wednesday’s news conference but did not speak.

Vignarajah’s comments came exactly a week after Baltimore City’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released another report detailing adverse working conditions at DPW. The attorney said Silver’s family was devastated by the report’s findings but appreciates OIG’s work.

“This report opens a wound for this family that is just beginning to heal,” Vignarajah said. “This family is grateful to the inspector general for doing what she is charged with doing, showing, laying bare the tragic reality within this agency.”

Vignarajah noted that many duties of a trash collector may seem “obvious.” But despite this, the attorney said DPW had not trained its trash collectors since 2022. This was before Silver began working at DPW, which then held a mandatory heat safety training session just four days after his death.

“The training that happened in 2022 for half [of] the staff surely had some value. DPW thought it was valuable enough to do it four days after Mr. Silver died,” Vignarajah said, charging DPW with failing to be proactive to prevent similar tragedies.

Vignarajah pointed to public statements made by Travis Christian, another DPW trash collector who was working with Silver on the day of his death and also collapsed from heat exhaustion. Christian said he received no training before being immediately assigned to ride on the back of a trash truck on his first day at the agency, according to Vignarajah.

“He was literally, on the first day, told to get on the back of a truck and learn it as you go,” Vignarajah said.

Vignarajah said Silver’s family appreciated Mayor Brandon Scott’s courtesy call in the days following his death but has not heard anything since.

The family wants to see the city take more serious action and responsibility for the tragedy, including waiving its attorney-client privilege with a private law firm to publicly reveal interviews of DPW employees by Maryland Occupational Safety and Health.

DPW Director Khalil Zaied previously said the department is working to train employees, improve its facilities and fleet, and formalize a set of safety and compliance operating procedures.

More than $60 million in funding is set to improve Solid Waste Bureau facilities, Zaied said.

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