What A Way To Go

The Workplace

 

A man at a fish sauce factory in the Vietnamese coastal town of Phan Thiet , 118 miles (190km) northeast of Ho Chi Minh City , fell into a sauce tank on 21 October 2002. Four other workers, including the man's wife, tried to rescue him but were overcome by fumes from the fermenting fish. All five lay at the bottom of the 7.2ft (2.2m) tank for some time before being dragged out. One of the rescuers, a 34-year-old man, died after being taken to the Binh Thuan hospital. Reuters 22 Oct 2002.

 

Seven Egyptian workers drowned in a vat of animal blood that they were cleaning up at a slaughter-house on 12 August 2003.

The bodies of the men, aged 18-40, were found at a farm in Qweirah, outside the Red Sea port of Aqaba in Jordan . After the first worker fell in, each drowned trying to save the previous man. "The blood was thick and filled with clots," said a farm manager, "making it difficult to swim." Associated Press 13 Aug 2003.

 

A prison cook died after falling into a cauldron of bean soup at Sri Lanka 's main prison. The 27-year-old man was knocked into the pot when another cook slipped on the wet floor. AFP 14 June 2003.

 

Rescuers found the frozen body of Virglio Mernadino , 57, buried under a mountain of frozen food that had fallen from five 5 0 ft (15m) high racks at the Versacold warehouse in Brampton, Ontario, on 23 August 2003. He had been working alone that day, stacking pallets. Five of the storage racks holding thousands of 16cwt (800kg) pallets were found toppled over, trapping Mernadino under ice. Associated Press 28 Aug 2003.

 

Shelves stacked 30ft (10m) high with garlic collapsed and killed l5 workers at a cold-storage warehouse in central China on 5 May 2004. The accident in Zhengzhou city, Henan province, buried more than 30 employees under a pile of garlic shoots and broken shelving. Nineteen were injured. Associated Press 7 May 2004.

 

A factory worker was scalded to death when half a ton of spinach soup exploded over him. Zacharia Conteh, 34, had the job of opening a giant pressure cooker and adding the milk and cream at the New Covent Garden Soup Company factory in Harlesden, west London . A safety device should have prevented him from doing so until the mixture had cooled. The father of two , from Deptford, died a month later in hospital. Sun , D. Express , 5 Dec 2002.

 

Tyron Watson, 48, a worker at JR Wheel, a wheel manufacturer in Akron, Ohio, was killed on 29 December 2001 when he walked into a cage housing a robot to work on it. The robot, which had not been properly de-energized, reactivated and smashed him into a conveyor belt. Akron (OH) Beacon Journal - 3 January 2002.

 

A 51-year-old man from Perth was cleaning a truck-mounted cement mixer in the town of Carnarvon on the western coast of Australia when the cement bowl shifted and he became caught in the agitator. He died from massive internal injuries. Adelaide Advertiser - 9 March 2002

 

Herbert Lee Grossman, a lorry driver from Texas, survived for three hours after being knocked down and cut in half by a reversing lorry in West Pensacola, Florida. "When the paramedics got up to him," said a highway patrol office, "he was breathing and he raised his arms to them." His torso was taken to hospital by helicopter and his bottom half by ambulance. He was pronounced dead in hospital. Eddie Patterson, 55, who was reversing the lorry wasn't charged. Pensacola (FL) News Journal - 23 March 2001.

 

Elmer Casellano, 16, of Netcong, New Jersey, was crushed to death when he was pulled into a 3ft (90cm) wide pizza dough-mixing machine at Frank's Pizza shop in Newark on 21 October 2001. His hand or clothing might have snagged on the machine's paddles, but the exact circumstances, including how the machine came to be turned on, were not known. Reuters - 24 October 2001.

 

A bus driver was killed after he was struck by his bus.

The man, who has not been named but is believed to be local, appears to have got off his bus in the Allerton area of Liverpool to investigate a problem.

He was then hit by the vehicle - a North Western bus with no passengers on board - as it began to roll and died later of his injuries.

Accident investigators were called to the scene and are trying to establish whether there was any fault with the bus.

An inquiry is to be opened by the Department of Transport. Top Stories - 13 January

 

Esther Penn, 35, a securities administrator from Brooklyn, was putting the day's stock receipts away in a basement vault of the Depostory Trust and Clearing Corporation on Water Street, Lower Manhattan, on 27 July 2000, when she was accidentally locked inside. She pulled the fire alarm at around 9pm, thinking it would summon help, but instead it triggered a carbon-dioxide-gas-fire extinguishing system which sucked all the air from the vault and suffocated her. Associated Press - 29 July 2000.

 

Egyptian government worker Adel Nasim Gerges, 50, who had waited eight years for promotion, died of a heart attack when he saw his name on a noticeboard listing thousands of promotions. "He fell victim to the dream which had finally come true," as a Cairo newspaper put it. Wolverhampton Express & Star, Halifax Evening Courier - 18 February 1999

 

A worker is dead after one day on the job at a food processing company in Kensington. Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials say the 39-year-old man fell into a meat grinder, fracturing his skull and suffering other injuries. OSHA is investigating conditions at Mrs. Ressler's Food Processing Company. ABC Newswire (Pennsylvania) - 16 December

 

 

A workman died yesterday after he fell more than 80 feet while dismantling the set for a Spice Girls concert.

The 28-year-old man crashed through a ceiling at the Earl's Court exhibition centre in south-west London.

He fell while working on rigging and died at about 3.50am. The Daily Record - 16 December 1999.