Hector Rivas was, by all accounts, a hard worker and devoted family man. No matter what the occasion, say family members, Rivas was always there to support and encourage and lend a shoulder of comfort when times required.

He was deeply in love with and committed to his loving wife of 23 years, Ana, who would always greet him with warm meals and affection when he returned from a hard day's work.

Rivas worked long and late hours as a mechanic for the Boston Public Schools' bus fleet, often arriving for work while most of the city remained asleep in their beds. But, despite his heavy work schedule, he always made time for play with his children and grandchildren. With great love to give them, Rivas and his wife happily presided over a large family of six biological and adopted children and 13 grandchildren. It was this commitment, friends and family said, that made his behavior leading up to March 9 such a mystery and caused such concern.

In the brief time that he started forgoing his usual playtime with the children and began falling asleep, shortly after arriving home and before eating his usual meal, Ana and her family became concerned but assumed that Hector's exhaustion was the result of a particularly heavy workload at the job. They believed that, with a couple of good nights' sleep, Rivas would be good as new and back to being the caring and fun-loving man that they all knew. They could not have imagined that, as he left for work that day in early March, it would be the last time.

"We became worried when he came home and fell asleep quickly," said Ana Rivas. "He came home from work and I was heating dinner for him and he fell asleep. We just thought that he was tired from working because he worked so hard. He would leave here so early, sometimes as early as 1 a.m.

"We just thought he was doing too much. The day before he died, he seemed strange, like he was half asleep. He always played with our kids before he went to work and when he came home and now, he wasn't even doing that. If I knew what was happening...," she said, trailing off into tears.

On March 9, Hector was working at the bus facility at 1034 Freeport St. in Dorchester. As he had done many times before, he set about preparing the school buses for later use by drivers who would be transporting the children to Boston schools that day. As was common for mechanics working in the cold during the winter months, Rivas took shelter in the cab of the truck carrying the generator used to ignite the engines of the buses as he waited for the bus to warm. Details with regard to exact times and sequences beyond this point are still under investigation, but when coworkers returned to the yard later that morning, they found Hector slumped over and unresponsive in the cab of the truck, the apparent victim of acute carbon monoxide poisoning. Rivas was taken to the hospital where he could not be revived. 

FIRST STUDENT, INC.

While Rivas's death has been devastating to his family, friends and coworkers, it was made infinitely more tragic, say others, by the fact that it was not only preventable, but Rivas himself is reported to have approached the management of First Student, Inc.- the Cincinnati-based company under contract to run transportation for Boston Public Schools-about the need to install proper ventilation for health and safety precautions. Rivas was said to be concerned about constant exposure to carbon monoxide produced by the Start-All's -the generators used by mechanics to start the buses in the fleet -and other members of the facility are reported to have submitted numerous requests for mitigation of the problem.

"For two years now, he was telling the company to do something so that the fumes could go out," said Javier Ortiz, a fellow mechanic and spokesperson for the Rivas family. "He did the research to find out how to do it and he told the bosses that, with a piece of tubing that costs $40, they would be able to take the fumes out and make it safe. If they had listened to him, Hector would be here today."

According to Ortiz and members of UAW Local 1596, the union in which Hector was a member, there are only five or six Start All's for the entire bus fleet making the total cost for the multi-national company to provide the proper ventilation for the facility no greater than $240.

PENALTIES ASSESSED

Since the death of Hector Rivas, the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited First Student, Inc. with 13 violations, including one count of willful negligence in Hector's death and fines totaling $95,000. The report issued by OSHA details, among other items, the lack of adequate ventilation of the generator trucks and states findings that Hector was exposed to 11-times the permissible exposure level to carbon monoxide. The fact that Hector had been ingesting steady doses of the gas is believed to have accounted for the sluggishness he began experiencing near his death.

While a spokesperson for First Student, Inc. reached by telephone told The Bulletin that the company was issuing "no comment," reports reveal that the company intends to fight all of the charges levied by OSHA. Indications from these reports also seem to indicate that the company intends to fight these charges citing an inability to anticipate the situation.

In a stunning turn of events for the Rivas family, just as they had begun to try to make sense of one family member's death, another "unanticipated situation" was ready to occur. And, once again, it involved one of the sites run by First Student, Inc.

ANOTHER ACCIDENT

On April 18, Miguel Camacho-a Boston School Department bus mechanic and son-in-law of Hector Rivas - was working in the bus yard in Hyde Park when he was called to assist two other mechanics. A ten-ton air jack, used to lift and support buses, had become jammed by chains rigged around the jack for extra support. As Camacho worked to free the chains from the machine, the jack tumbled onto Camacho breaking his pelvis and injuring his arm and leg.

"They lifted the bus up on a jack," said Camacho. "They tried to remove the chains and couldn't because it was stuck, so they used a crowbar to try and remove them. The supervisor told another co-worker to get another jack so that they could take the other one out.

"I told them to remove the air from the jack in order to take the tension out of the jack. They were using a hammer to get the chain off and when that didn't work, they used a bigger hammer. They were finally about to [take the chain out] and I didn't know that someone had put the air back into the jack.

"When they let [the bus go] on the jack, it exploded and the jack came flying out and hit me. It hurt my chest and arm, and fractured my pelvis."

"They say that if the jack had hit him [straight on], he might have been killed," said Ruth Miriam Camacho, Miguel's wife. "After what happened to Hector, we didn't know what to do. We were so shocked."

According to instructions that accompany the jacks like the ones used on the day of Camacho's accident, users are advised against employing chains with the jack under risk of injury. Sources familiar with procedures in the bus yards have reported that the use of chains with the air jacks is a frequent occurrence. Camacho's accident, and conditions surrounding it, are among the charges and fines leveled by OSHA. Allegedly, First Student, Inc. has also decided to fight these charges.

LOOKING FORWARD

Taking a keen interest in the situation surrounding the Rivas and Camacho families, City Councilors Felix Arroyo and Chuck Turner have begun investigating the details of the cases and are currently looking for a means to remedy the current conditions prevailing in the bus yards.

"It's important to acknowledge the tragic death of Hector Rivas and the injury to Miguel Camacho, as well as other incidents with mechanics working for [the company], Turner said. "One of the main issues at a meeting that we had last February was that these buses were breaking down and there didn't seem to be enough mechanics to do the work necessary and conditions were becoming unsafe for people being overworked. But this is just a tragic, tragic situation and there need to be some answers for these families and there needs to be an immediate restructuring in safety procedures to make sure that these things don't happen again."

Unfortunately for the Rivas family, those changes will have come to late. "I was really close to my father," said Maria Rivas in choked emotion. "When I heard [what happened], I couldn't believe it. He's been dead seven months and I miss him so much. He was always there for me. I felt like I could talk to him about anything. I wanted him to be able to meet his grandson. He always did everything with us. He always helped me. I can't believe I'll never see him again."

As the family struggles to move forward from the tragedy of losing their beloved "Papa," that journey is made become more difficult still for one member.

"Shortly after Hector died, Ana was diagnosed with cancer," revealed Elizabeth Vargas, daughter of Miguel Camacho. "It has been a difficult blow for the family, but she's trying to deal with it because she has so many things to take care of now."

"It's very painful to talk about," said Ana. "It's been a very hard time. It's made such a big impact on our lives. I'm so full of pain. He was so full of life. He loved his children so much. This blended family - they are all our children. We are all in pain."